"[A] man . . .the other day pointed out that I was never bored. I hadn’t thought of that before, but it’s true: I’m never bored. I’m appalled, horrified, angered, but never bored. The world appears to me so infinite in its variety that many lifetimes could not exhaust its interest. So long as you can still be surprised, you have something to be thankful for." -Theodore Dalrymple
Well, Fr McCaffrey's White Friars does indeed have some good things to say about St Simon Stock. But it doesn't lend itself to excerpting for the blog format. Instead, here's a traditional look at St Simon taken from Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints and lifted from EWTN's ever-useful website. (You can find it here.)
He was descended of a good family in Kent. From his infancy he turned all his thoughts and affections to attain to the most perfect love of God, and studied to devote all his moments to this glorious pursuit. In this earnest desire, in the twelfth year of his age, he retired into a wilderness, and chose for his dwelling a great hollow oak tree; whence the surname of Stock wee given him. While he here mortified his flesh with fasting and other severities, he nourished his soul with spiritual dainties in continual prayer. His drink was only water; and he never touched any other food but herbs, roots and wild apples. While he led this course of life, he was invited by a divine revelation to embrace the rule of certain religious men who were coming from Palestine into England. Albert, the holy patriarch of Jerusalem, having given a written rule to the Carmelite friars about the year 1205, some brothers of this order were soon after brought over from mount Carmel by John lord Vescy and Richard lord Gray of Codnor, when they returned from the Holy Land. These noblemen some time after settled them, the latter in the wood of Aylesford, near Rochester in Kent, the former in the forest of Holme, near Alnewick in Northumberland; which houses continued the two most famous convents of this order in England till their dissolution in the thirty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII. But we are assured by Bale, who before his apostacy was himself a friar of the English province of this order,1 and by Lambert2 and Weaver3 in their accurate descriptions of the Antiquities of Kent, that the first or most ancient convent of these friars in England was that at Newenden in Kent, which was founded for them by Sir Thomas Archer or Fitz-Archer, whose family flourished for many centuries upon that manor. The first arrival of these friars in England is placed in the annals of the order, quoted by F. Cosmas de Villiers,4 in 1212. Simon, who had then lived a recluse twenty years, imitating the Macariuses and Arseniuses in the most heroic practices of penance and contemplation, was much affected with the devotion of these servants of God to the blessed Virgin, their edifying deportment, and their eremitical austere institute, and joined their holy company before the end of the year 1212. After his admission he was sent to Oxford to finish his studies; and having run through his academical course he returned to his convent, where so bright was the example of his piety, that the virtue of the rest seemed to suffer an eclipse by the extraordinary lustre of his sanctity. Such was his reputation, that in 1215 Brocard, prior of mount Carmel, and general of the order, appointed him vicar-general, with full power over all the western provinces. Many clamors being raised against this institute, St. Simon repaired to Rome in 1226, and obtained from pope Honorius III. a confirmation of the rule given to this order by Albertus; and another from Gregory IX. in 1229. Some years after, St. Simon paid a visit to his brethren on mount Carmel, and remained six years in Palestine, where, in 1237, he assisted at the general chapter of the order held by Alanus the fifth general. In this assembly it was decreed, that the greatest part of the brethren should pass into Europe, their settlements in the east being continually disturbed by the persecutions, oppressions, or threats of the Saracens. In 1240 many were sent to England, and in 1244, Alanus himself, with St. Simon, having nominated Hilarion his vicar on mount Carmel, and in Palestine, followed them thither, there being already five monasteries of the order erected in this island.
In a general chapter held at Aylesford in 1245, Alanus resigning his dignity, St. Simon was chosen the sixth general, and in the same year procured a new confirmation of the rule by pope Innocent IV., who at the saint's request received this order under the special protection of the Holy See, in 1251. St. Simon established houses in most parts of Europe; but this institute flourished nowhere with so great splendor and edification as in England, and continued so to do for several ages, as the annals of the order take notice. St. Simon, soon after he was promoted to the dignity of general, instituted the confraternity of the Scapular, to unite the devout clients of the Blessed Virgin in certain regular exercises of religion and piety. Several Carmelite writers assure us that he was admonished by the Mother of God in a vision, with which he was favored on the 16th of July, to establish this devotion." This confraternity has been approved, and favored with many privileges by several popes.5 The rules prescribe, without any obligation or precept, that the members wear a little scapular, at least secretly, as the symbol of the order, and that they recite every day the office of our Lady, or the office of the church; or, if they cannot read, seven times the Pater, Ave, and Gloria Patri, in lieu of the seven canonical hours; and lastly, that they abstain from flesh-meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; or if this cannot be done, that they double for each of these days the seven Paters, &c. St. Simon cured several sick persons by giving them the scapular; the reputation of which miracles moved Edward I., king of England, St. Louis of France, and many others, to enrol their names in this confraternity.
St. Simon governed the order with great sanctity and prudence during twenty years, and propagated it exceedingly from England over all Europe being himself famous for his eminent virtue, and a great gift of miracles and prophecy. He wrote several hymns and decrees for his order, and several other useful things for its service, says Leland. At length, in the hundredth year of his age, having a call to France, he sailed to Bordeaux, where God put an end to his labors some months after his arrival, in 1265, on the 16th of July. He was buried in the cathedral of that city, and was honored among the saints soon after his death. Pope Nicholas III. granted an office to be celebrated in his honor at Bordeaux on the 16th of May, which Paul V. extended to the whole order. See his authentic life, written soon after his death, also Stevens's Monast. Angelic. t. 2, pp. 159, 160; Leland, de Script. Brit. t. 2, c. 277, p. 294; Papebroke, t. 3, Maij, p. 653; Newcourt's Repertorium, (on the Carmelite friars,) vol. 1, p. 566; Weaver, p. 139; Fuller, b. 6, p. 271; Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 186, ed. 1730; F. Cosmas de Villiers a S. Philippo, Bibl. Carmel. t. 2, p. 750.
Endnotes
1 Bale, Cent. xii. 20
2 P.139.
3 P.139.
4 Bibliotheca Carmelitana, ed. Anno 1752, t. 2, p. 750.
5 See the bulls of Pius V., Clement VIII., Paul V., Clement X., &c.
(Taken from Vol. V of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company)
Father, you called St Simon Stock to serve you in the brotherhood of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Through his prayers help us like him to live in your presence and to work for man's salvation. Through our Lord. Amen.
Deus, qui, precibus et meritis beati Simonis Confessoris tui, Carmeli montis Ordinem, per manus Genitricis Filii tui Domini nostri Iesu Christi, singulari privilegio decorasti: concede; ut, ipso interveniente, ad gloriam, quam diligentibus te præparasti, pervenire valeamus. Per eumdem Dominum. Amen.
O God, who by the merits and prayers of thy blessed confessor Simon didst so singularly honour the Order of Mount Carmel at the hands of the Mother of thy Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, grant that through his intercession we may attain to the glory thou has prepared for those who love thee: through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
Plebs tibi, Domine, Virginique Matri dicata, beati Simonis, quem ei Rectorem et Patrem dedisti, solemnitate lætetur: et sicut per eum tantæ protectionis signum obtinuit; ita prædistinationis æternæ munera consequatur. Per Dominum. Amen.
May thy people dedicated to Thee and the Virgin and Mother, O Lord, always rejoice in the solemnity of Blessed Simon, whom Thou didst give to them as ruler and father; and as through him they received such a sign of protection, so they may enjoy the gift of eternal predistination. Through our Lord. Amen.
That's how the New York Times headlined their story on the Vatican's new website in Latin and I couldn't improve on it.
While looking for something completely different yesterday, I discovered that not only is there a Robert Benchley Society but there is also a Dorothy Parker Society. Which led me to poking about on the net to find out who else from the Algonquin Round Table (a.k.a. "The Vicious Circle") had a society. Well, it doesn't look like any of them do. Not even James Thurber.
"Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? I am glad I was not born before tea."
-The Rt Rev Canon Sydney Smith
If you're in California, better check with the state gummint first.
The latest spectacle is an Ivy League professor threatening to sue her students because, she claims, . . . that some of her students were so unreceptive of "French narrative theory" that it amounted to a hostile working environment.
The first notice I had of global warming came exactly one year ago today.
After a very unexpected and not very pleasant Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon improved considerably, even if the weather was hotter than the hinges of hell, for the latest number of Gilbert Magazine came the other day and, once my eyes decided to function again, was available for a good read. Therein we found:
"If you ask me to extend my sympathy to the poor fox, pursued by savage sportsmen, shall I not also extend it to the poor sportsman, pursued by savage humanitarians?" ["Clemens", Chesterton, As Seen by His Contemporaries, p. 55]
"A great deal of modern art claims to be created in the spirit of tomorrow because it is very carefully and laboriously copied from what was done only yesterday. A thing is called futurist merely because it is fashionable; curiously ignoring the fact that the fashion will be over when the future arrives." [GKC's Introduction to The New World of the Theatre]And on page 4 a notice that the brilliant, if exceedingly odd, Bobby Fischer, who died last January 17, received a Catholic funeral in Iceland where he died. I had not seen that before or had any idea that he might be Catholic.
Almighty, everlasting God, who dost look upon the earth and make it tremble, spare those who are afraid, and be merciful to those who pray to Thee: that we who fear Thine anger, which shaketh the the foundations of the earth, may always experience Thy mercy, which healeth its commotions. Through our Lord. Amen.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui respicis terram, et facis eam tremere: parce metuentibus, propitiare supplicibus: ut, cuius iram terræ fundamenta concutientem expavimus, clementiam contritiones eius sanantem iugiter sentiamus. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium ruum, qui tecum vivit. . . .Amen.
Mammas are wont to caution us about keeping bad company. St Obama should have paid more attention. We find this morning that the Rev Jeremiah Wright is going stick by his erstwhile parishioner. And he's on a speaking tour so he should have plenty of opportunity to render his verbal support. Mike Allen's "Politico" column says that, so far, it's going something like this:
The pastor also insisted Obama “didn’t denounce” him and “didn’t distance himself” from Wright’s controversial remarks, but “did what politicians do.”Oh, yeah. He's going to be a big help.
Wright implied Obama still agrees with him by saying: “He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was [portrayed as] anti-American.”
. . . does it again. Today's piece in the WSJ pierces to the heart. No one who's ever been subjected to those nickel Nazis would think of disagreeing. Much less anyone who's ever had to stand by and watch his wife rousted by those cretins.
The Wadi al-Siah is the original home of the Carmelite Order. The Haaretz newspaper tells something of how it stands today.
Staircases. Nine amazing staircases. The St Joseph staircase in New Mexico used to be there but the picture is missing now.
Yes, again. Whatever the virus/bacteria/bug/infection was that Mary brought back with her has done its work remarkably well. I have relapsed for the third time. Or is it the fourth? I've lost track. We have been ingesting large quantities of pills, tablets, syrups, tisanes and chicken soup, keeping warm, drinking plenty of liquid, and getting bloody fed up with coughing, sneezing, sore throats, fevers and ridiculous weakness.
MIT twists itself into a pretzel, and all for diversity. The Closed Cafeteria explains it for you here.
The American Media does it in its own special way. Media Research Center illustrates for us:
• ABC's Harris Sees 'Controversial' 'Hardliner' Pope with 'Tin Ear'
• CBS Labels Pope 'Hardliner'; Interviews Left-Wing Priest
• CBS's Smith: 'Americans Maybe Little Unsure or Fearful' of Pope
• Maher: 'Pope Used to Be a Nazi;' Compares Church to Mormon Cult
In the lead story of Politico's print edition, Josephine Hearn and Ryan Grim report that Pope's visit is "pitting anti-abortion-rights activists against Roman Catholic lawmakers who support abortion rights, reviving an issue that has received scant attention in Congress or on the campaign trail in recent months":
"The conflict could come to a head Thursday, when the pope is scheduled to celebrate a Mass at the Washington Nationals' new ballpark. The Vatican has invited all Catholic lawmakers, and many abortion-rights-supporting Catholics — including Kerry and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — are expected to attend. … [Sen. John] Kerry spokesman David Wade said his boss also intends to take Communion on Thursday."
They don't go together all that well, really. I filed my forms last night and this morning cycled up to the post office to mail the cheque to the FTB. That last was not the smartest move I've made this year. The cycling, I mean. That flu has really taken the starch out of me. Leading me to wonder: "If I have so little judgement as to think I could easily bicycle all the way to the P.O., what sort of judgement did I use filling out the tax forms?" Lord have mercy. I suppose I shall find out soon enough.
Last week was rather devastating for Mary. On Monday she learned that Maureen, a good friend of hers, was in hospital after a heart attack on the Sunday prior. On Wednesday a call came that another friend had died suddenly after an evening walk. This was an especially sad case, at least for those who believe as we do, as Joan was a fallen-away Catholic. And on Friday morning Mary got the call we have been expecting since she returned from Ireland, that her mother had died.
Yet again, it has been a while since I have paid sufficient attention to The Inn. There have been several reasons this time. None of them good news.
“What are flu symptoms?
“Typical clinical features of influenza include
fever (usually 100° F to 103° F in adults and often even higher in children),
respiratory symptoms such as
cough,
sore throat,
runny or stuffy nose,
headache,
muscle aches, and
fatigue, sometimes extreme.
. . . . .
“Most people who get the flu recover completely in one to two weeks, but some people develop serious and potentially life-threatening medical complications, such as pneumonia. In an average year, influenza is associated with about 20,000 deaths nationwide and many more hospitalizations.”
It says here that I'm supposed to reveal the "Top-Five Critically-Lauded Movies I Simply Detest". Since one cannot say "no" to Hilary, I have to give this a shot.[NB: Since we have been obsessed by politics lately, it may be worthwhile to mention that this is the Good Hilary we are referring to, not the Bad Hillary. For future reference, the Bad Hillary uses two Ls and the Good Hilary the statutory one.]
It's the thin end of the wedge. Sure, just a polka band; laugh if you like. But this is a desperate woman. Mark my words: there are no depths to which this woman will not sink. It will end in not paying the piper.
Only ten days? Are you sure?
From Msgr Ronald Knox's The Creed in Slow Motion, published in 1949. [Note: "The sermons of which this book is composed were delivered to the girls at the Assumption Convent (now at Exton, Rutland) when they were evacuated to Aldenham Park, Bridgnorth, during the late war."]
Chapter XII: Dead and buried
I don't know whether you learn any French history here. I can't remember ever being taught any French history in my life. But if you do learn any, you have probably by now got down as far as Clovis, who was king of the Franks in about a.d. 500. He was a pagan to start with, but was converted by marrying a Christian wife, St. Clotilde. And when he was being instructed before his baptism (by St. Remigius, I suppose) and had got down as far as the story of the Crucifixion, Clovis is said to have remarked, " If I had been there with my Franks, we wouldn't have stood for that sort of thing ". This is always quoted as the comment of a very stupid man, who quite failed to see the point. Well, I suppose he did, but in some ways I don't think it's such a bad comment. He was only an old tough, but he had the sense to see that this article in the Christian creed is a very extraordinary one—that the Crucifixion should ever have been allowed to happen.
I don't mean it was an extraordinary thing that men should have allowed it to happen. On the contrary, I'm afraid it was just like us all over; and if Clovis had really been there with his Franks, Pilate would probably have managed to explain to him that this was, after all, the best way out of a difficult situation. No, but it was extraordinary that the Son of God should be allowed to die. Our Lord, as we know, was free from original sin, and on that ground alone you might have thought he ought to be spared the sentence of death, which was only pronounced against our race because of Adam's fault. But there, of course, our Lady was in the same position; and she, like him, underwent the experience of death before she went home. But in our Lord's case there is a quite extraordinary paradox, which may be expressed quite simply in two words; God died. Oh, it's quite true that he didn't die as God; the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity could not, for a solitary moment of time, cease to exist. But the Person who breathed out his Spirit on the Cross was God; and yet he died.
We think of the Resurrection as an extraordinary thing; but that is really the wrong way to look at it. The Resurrection was, you may say, an inevitable event, an event which anybody ought to have foreseen. The pains of death, as St. Peter says, could not hold our Lord; of course they couldn't. No, the extraordinary thing was that the pains of death should ever, even for a moment, have the power to assail him. And yet they did. I've tried to explain to you, in one of my earlier sermons, why it was fitting that this should happen, so far as our limited intelligences can attempt to account for such a mystery. But, however much you or I may understand it or fail to understand it, there is the fact; God died. And it is a mystery which will, perhaps, make it easier for us to understand other mysteries; other mysteries which will cross the path of each of us, as life goes on. I mean, when someone for whom we care deeply is taken from us by death and we find ourselves murmuring at the back of our minds the old complaint: " Why was this allowed to happen? " All we know is that God hung on the Cross, with his Blessed Mother beside him praying a Mother's prayers; and he was allowed to die.
Our Lord wasn't like other men. God didn't treat him as he treats you and me, sending what he sees best to us whether we like it or not, and often in spite of our frantic struggles to avoid it. No, nothing was done without the co-operation of our Lord's human will. And so it was at his death; his death was an action, not a pressure from outside which he couldn't avoid. Sometimes the deaths of holy people have the air of being deliberately willed. I was told a story of Father Bede Jarrett, the great Dominican provincial who died not very long ago, which illustrates that. I have been told that when he fell into his last illness, Father Bernard Delany went to see him, and said, " Well, Father, of course you know that you've got to get well; we can't possibly spare you ". And about a fortnight later, when Father Bernard went to see him again, Father Bede said, " Oh, Father, I'm so dreadfully tired; do you think you could let me want to die after all, or must I go on under obedience wanting to live? " And he naturally said, " Oh, of course I never meant to put you under obedience ." And Father Bede said, " Thank you so much", and died about half an hour afterwards.
Well, as I say, nothing ever happened to our Lord which he didn't will with his human will, and therefore you may think of his death as an action of his; he didn't just get killed, or let himself die, he chose death. You get hints of that all through the story of the Crucifixion; that he should have died after three hours, I mean, whereas a man may hang alive on a cross for three days; that he should have cried aloud, saying quite intelligible words, a moment before, as if there was no mortal weakness in him; and then there's that phrase St. John uses, " Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst"—he has the whole situation in his hands, up to the last moment. I don't mean that if our Lord's body had been submitted to a post mortem examination it would have been impossible to find any cause of death; I don't see why his death should have been supernatural in that sense. But his will co-operated in his own death; he was not robbed of his life, he deliberately handed it over.
It's curious, isn't it, how when you come to look into them all the clauses of the Credo which seemed the obvious and easy ones are really the obscure and difficult ones ? To say that our Lord died seems quite an ordinary statement, but we have seen that it's a very extraordinary statement indeed. And then when we come on to this next clause, we're in just the same position. He died, and was buried; of course, you say, if he died, naturally the next thing was to bury him. Yes, but what I'm trying to show you is that, if it was an astonishing thing that our Lord should die, equally it was an astonishing thing that he should stay dead. The separation of body from soul, even in us ordinary human creatures, is not a natural state; it is an unnatural state which only takes effect because we are sinful creatures, fallen creatures, born under a curse. It's not natural for a soul to be separated from its body any more than it is natural for a fish to live out of water. And in our Lord's case there was no question of punishment for sin, no question of his having inherited the taint of fallen nature. Therefore you would have expected that as soon as he died he would come to life again. Every second during which he stayed dead, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday morning, was a kind of miracle; a much more remarkable miracle really than his Resurrection. Why did that happen?
You see, there's a very important principle in theology which lays it down that miracula non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. That is Latin, but it is not very difficult Latin to translate; I should think some of you could almost do it in your heads. Miracula, miracles, non sunt, are not, multiplicanda, meet to be multiplied, praeter, beyond, necessitatem, what is necessary. God can do any amount of miracles, but we are not to assume that he throws miracles about the place recklessly all the time. For instance, if you look in your desk to find a particular book and can't see it there, and the mistress says, " Go back and look again ", and you say a prayer to St. Anthony and find the book as soon as you open the desk, it's possible that there has been a miracle. It's possible that you left the book among the straw you put in your rabbit-hutch; there would be nothing unusual about that. And it's possible that St. Anthony found it there and scooped it up and put it back in your desk in answer to your prayer; St. Anthony is a very great saint, and it is not impossible that his intercession should have done that for you. But, on the principle which we have just been translating from the Latin, it's safer to assume that probably when you looked in your desk before you didn't look very carefully. And that makes us wonder why our Lord didn't come to life again almost immediately after he died, instead of lying on there in his tomb all Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, by a long series, as it were, of miracles. Why was it our Lord wanted, not merely to die, but to be buried in the earth?
Well, I think there are a whole lot of answers to that question; and we shall come across most of them in their due place, if we go on pegging away at the Credo. For instance, I think he wanted to fortify our imaginations against the uncomfortable feeling we all have when we go to a funeral, and the coffin is smothered in earth. We know really that all that makes no difference, because the dead person will rise again; but there is something which depresses our imagination about the thought of a grave dug in the ground. To lighten that depression of ours, our Lord was content to be buried in a tomb, so that we should be able to think of the earth to which, sooner or later, we must return, as something which has been hallowed and quickened by his presence. When you were very small, and had to take medicine, did your mother ever take a sip of the medicine first, just so as to assure you that everything was all right? That is what Jesus Christ did, when he was buried for us. But we shall be talking about that, I suppose, when we get on to the Resurrection of the Flesh.
And then, I think he wanted his burial to be the mystical symbol of our baptism. St. Paul doesn't think of baptism so much as washing us clean from our sins; he likes to think of it rather as burying us away from our sins; the waters of baptism roll over us and engulf us, and we come to life again, as it were, new creatures, after that drowning. So, right back to St. Paul's time, Christian thought has looked upon our Lord's passage through the dark gates of the tomb as the type of our passage through the waters of baptism, and not merely the type of it, but the power which gives it its efficacy.
And then you've got to remember that, while his body lay in the tomb, our Lord's soul was not being idle. But we shall be talking about that, I hope, on the last Sunday of this term, so there's no need to deal with it now.
Meanwhile, there's a much more human reason our Lord had for putting a fairly long interval—not too long, but a fairly long interval—between his death and his rising again. He wanted, surely, to test the faith of his followers. I think that is a point we are apt to forget when we read the story of the Resurrection. I mean, when you read the story of the Resurrection don't you find yourself wondering how it was that it came as such a surprise to everybody? Why weren't they expecting it? He'd told them, again and again. Well, you know, it's only a guess, but I think it was partly the strain of waiting. Oh, it's quite true, our Lord hadn't merely told them he was going to rise from the dead; he had told them he was going to rise from the dead the third day. But hope deferred does make the heart sick; and you will find that the two disciples whom our Lord met on the road to Emmaus, that first Easter Day, talk as if they had grown tired of waiting. " And besides all this, it is now the third day since all this happened "—as if you couldn't be expected to wait a matter of forty-eight hours for God to bring his purpose to fulfilment. Our Lord wanted them, I think, to learn to wait; waiting is good for all of us.
And perhaps the simplest way of all to answer the question, " Why did our Lord want to be buried in the earth?" is this. He wanted the whole of his merciful design for our redemption to unroll itself gradually before our eyes, like a kind of slow-motion picture; never hurrying, never giving us the opportunity of saying, " Stop a minute, I haven't quite taken that in yet". He wouldn't just come to earth, he would spend thirty-three years on earth. He wouldn't just appear suddenly and scatter miracles over the country-side in the course of an afternoon; he would spend three years going about and doing good. He wouldn't just die for us; he would hang there, three whole hours, on the Cross, so that we could watch him and take it all in. And he wouldn't just die-and-rise-again; he would spend part of three days in the tomb, with his enemies vindictively keeping watch over him, with his friends pathetically mourning for him, so that when the Resurrection did come it should come as a deliberate gesture. " I have power," he said, " to lay down my life, and power to take it up again." See how deliberately he lays aside that garment of life, master of the situation, even when his hands and feet are nailed to a cross! See how deliberately he takes that garment of life up again, master of the situation still, even when he lies in a tomb! Nothing impresses us so much, when we read the account of God's dealings with his creation, either in science or in history, as the majestic slowness of his movements. And God made Man did not lose the characteristics of Godhead; he went to work very slowly, for all the world to see that he was God.
The political week, however, has been filled with entertainment.
The Times story with picture can be found here.
Good Friday
Collecta at the Lateran. Station at the Holy Cross in Jerusalem
Christ had said, "Non capit prophetam perire extra Hierusalem";["It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Luke xiii; 33)] for this reason the station is held today in the basilica known as Sancta Hierusalem, to which the Pope formerly went barefoot, walking in procession from the Lateran. He swung, as he went , a censer filled with precious perfumes before the wood of he true cross, carried by a deacon, whilst the choir sang Psalm cxviii; Beati immaculati in via.
Originally, a a sign of deep mourning, this day was aliturgical, as were usually all the Fridays and Saturdays of the year in Rome. Thus, when towards the sixth century the rigour of the ancient rule was somewhat relaxed and the Friday stations of Lent were instituted, the Popes still continued for many centuries the ancient Roman usage, which excluded even the Mass of the Presanctified on this day. . . .
The Adoration of the True Cross on Good Friday was taken, as we have already said, from the Liturgy of Jerusalem, where it was already in use towards the end of the fourth century. Indeed, for a long time, in the West also, this adoration formed almost the most important and characteristic part of the ceremony, the central point, as it were, of the whole Liturgy of the Parasceve. Ecce lignum crucis: this is the beginning of the parousia of the divine judge, and at the sight of the triumphal banner of redemption, whilst the Church prostrates herself low in adoration, the powers of hell flee away terror-stricken into the abyss.
At Rome in the Middle Ages the papal reliquary containing the true cross was sprinkled with perfumes, indicating thereby the sweetness of the grace which flows from the sacred wood, and the inner unction and the spiritual balm which the Lord pours into the hearts of those who carry the cross for love of him..
According to the Ordines Romani of the eighth century, today's ceremony took place partly in the Sessorian Basilica and partly in the Lateran. Towards two o'clock in the afternoon the Pope and the palatine clergy moved in procession barefoot from the Lateran to the stational basilica, where the Adoration of the Cross took place, followed by the reading of the Passion according to St John, and the Great Litany for the various ecclesiastical orders and for the necessities of the Church. The procession then returned to the Lateran, singing as they walked the psalm Beati immaculati in via. On this day of sadness neither the Pope nor the deacons received Holy Communion, but the people were free to do so either at the Lateran, where one of the suburbicarian bishops celebrated, or at any of the titular churches in the city.
It has been an unusual week. My mother-in-law has not been in good health for a while. And now the family thinks she is dying. Although, to be sure, there is no medical opinion to that effect, Mary flew off last Monday to be with her and be what help she can. So if you have an extra moment and can say a little prayer for Rosie, it would be appreciated.
WSJ: Obama and the Minister
If you were wondering who they were and who was committed to whom, this website is just what you've been wanting. All the Super Delegates: listed by category, by state, and by who's committed to whom. My congresshuman, for instance, is a woman and a Latina but nevertheless shows up in the Obama column. A rare bird, indeed, according to those who profess to know about these things.
A wonderful series of videos of the Sarum Use Mass that was celebrated in 1997 has been posted by the Reverend Pastor of the Valle Adurni blog, accompanied by his own very useful commentary. This isn't to be missed.
A Lightning Meditation from Msgr Knox. Why? Because I'm not very good at obedience and it struck home. It's not as hard as charity to be sure, but it's no walk in the park either.
An age like ours, which treasures the smart sayings of the children, may be a little disconcerted over our Lord's biography. "I must needs be in the place which belongs to my Father" -- was that the only memorable thing he said before turning thirty-three? And the church, characteristically, will not let the story end there. "He went down with them to Nazareth, and lived in subjection to them"; the moral is not, after all, to be in favour of truancy. The exception proves the rule; one gesture of freedom is the preface to long years of dependence; the silence has been broken only to be resumed.
Of all the Christian virtues, none is more admired by the world at large than that of obedience; none is less admired for its own sake. Discipline is valuable in the school, in the army, even (after a fashion) in the workshop; obedience, the sacrifice of personality, is therefore necessary as a means to an end. What we admire for its own sake is not obedience, but freedom, originality, independence of character. If the Church preaches obedience, it is doubtless for her own ends. . . .But it is not so. "The Roman line, the Roman order" -- that is only a detail.
Much can be (and has been) said about the spiritual advantages which result from learning the habit of obedience; as, that when you have to obey out of necessity you will be able to do it without grumbling, or that it saves you from the distracting experience of having to make up your own mind about a hundred matters of detail. But all these are still side-issues; the real point about obedience is that it is a virtue on its own account. It is humility strung up to concert pitch by the fact that you are obeying a fellow-mortal whose judgment, humanly speaking, you have no particular reason to trust. You do it precisely to imitate the condescension of the God who was obedient to his own creatures. And, doing it, you become not just a more useful tool, but a better man.
Vide this morning's paper, wherein she saith:
I end with a deadly, dead pan prediction from Christopher Hitchens. Hillary is the next president, he told radio's Hugh Hewitt, because "there's something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power. . . people who don't want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who only have one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end."
St Joseph's day will be on the 15th this year. Or maybe on the 1st of April. It all depends upon whether you follow the calendar for the "ordinary" or "extraordinary" use. In any event, it won't be on the 19th this year since that falls in Holy Week.
This morning's Wall Street Journal carried a fine piece on the Servant of God Fr Vincent Capodanno. You can find it here. Not something one expects to see in the WSJ. A pleasant surprise.
Playbook TV has become a daily must-see. Today's episode includes the "monster" comment and a Reszko update:
A very useful little website: Practical Money Skills For Life.
That's Tim Russert's pointed description for this phase of the Democrats' campaign.
"We want to start with the release of tax returns," [Obama advisor David] Axelrod said. "Sen Clinton has been very elusive in this campaign."
"There is no reason she cannot realease her 2006 returns. Talk about change you can Xerox. You can Xerox your tax returns," he said. "She has been a habitual non-discloser on this and other issues."
Statement from Howard Wolfson, [Senator Clinton's] Communications Director
Faced with many legitimate questions about Senator Obama’s long-time relationship with indicted political fixer Tony Rezko, the Obama campaign has chosen to lash out at Senator Clinton. . . .
. . . .Instead of making false attacks, we urge Senator Obama to release all relevant financial and other information related to indicted political fixer Tony Rezko.
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