Saturday, June 29, 2013

Ordinariate Housekeeping -- Bl John Henry Newman Dept

If you only sometimes frequent our little Ordinariate parish of Bl John Henry Newman, you may not know that we have a new venue beginning tomorrow, i.e., Sunday 30 June 2013.

We will be celebrating Mass in the Anglican Use in the St Bernadette Room of St Mary Catholic Church in Fullerton.  And at a new time -- 1:00 p.m.

The address:  400 West Commonwealth Ave, Fullerton, CA 92832.

You can find a map here.

(And under the current circumstances it might be helpful to point out that there is air conditioning.)

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Some Piping for the Weekend




A smallpiping quartet -- Allan MacDonald, Angus MacKenzie, Fin Moore and Angus Nicolson -- playing some lovely tunes, only one of which I can name: the first one, "She Moved Through the Fair".  There's at least one other I ought to know but the memory is not co-operating this unconscionably warm evening.

Saturday, June 08, 2013

We have been away. . . .

. . . .as you may have noticed.  Or maybe not.  When one is as lax a blogger as your servant perhaps  no one noticed.

But in any event we have been in Ireland for a fortnight or thereabouts.  We had great hospitality from Mary's sister and her husband who housed, fed, and chauffeured us from Dublin to the Shannon and parts in between.  Mary hadn't been home in five years and there were a lot of relatives to visit. . .who also showed us great kindness.

And you know what this means. Yes.  Holiday photos.  You aren't to be spared.  Should the urge for greater detail strike, you can click on any of pictures and fill the screen.

The first two pictures show something of the ruins of the 12th century Ballymacormack Church which lie in the grounds of Ballymacormack Cemetery.  A little bit more on the church, along with a couple of photographs, can be found here.

Mary hadn't seen her mother's grave yet so a visit to the old graveyard at Ballymacormack was on the agendum.


Old graves.




And a newer one.



Looking for ancestors in the graveyard next the old Church of Ireland (Anglican) parish of St John in Templemichael, Longford town.



St John Church from the front.


The old Presbyterian graveyard up the Battery Road in Longford.  The Finley and Forrest part of the family are buried here. . . .somewhere.   We never did find exactly where.  The old adjoining church is long gone and the graveyard is, as you can see, overgrown and neglected.


The old medieval - "founded 1265" it says on the plaque - Franciscan friary in Multyfarnam.  A beautiful building in a gorgeous setting.  Alas, the interior of the chapel has been thorougly novusordoized and is, um,  disappointing.  I'm told  the Blessed Sacrament is indeed reserved in the chapel but I never found Him.  On the plus side, the structure itself is intact and impressive.  Massive stonework and a very high ceiling; the urge to play pipes in it was overwhelming.  Fortunately for the Lord and the friars the pipes were not with  me on that outing.


And, yes, Multyfarnam has a graveyard.  (Yes, it was sort of a busman's  holiday wasn't it.)  No relatives in this one so far as we know.



Taken from the outdoor stations of the cross at the friary.



Further along on the stations of the cross.


The crucifixion.



The Cathedral in Mullingar.  Only very lightly novusordoized; still very beautiful.  No, I don't know why I took it at an angle.  I didn't mean to.


Mary's family home.  Well, her mother's actually.  But she spent summers here.



The drawing room.



The gong will sound for dinner. . . .



The dining room set for tea.



The drawing room . . . another view.  (A little surprised to have her picture taken; she's usually the photographer.)



This is a shot of the folly at Belvedere House, an 18th century country house near Mullingar.  I was  hoping for a lot more pictures but the camera battery died.  So two shots of the folly (the one above and the one below) are all I got.



There's a story behind the folly.  Robert Rochefort, the 1st Earl of Belvedere, took a warranted, if belated, dislike to his brother and built the folly so that it would block the view of the brother's house from his own.  (Even if my batteries died, the batteries belonging to the Belvedere estate didn't and the pictures taken with those came out quite nicely.  You can find them here.)




A walk by the banks of the Shannon.



 A shot of Athlone Cathedral in the distance.  I was trying to figure out how to use the zoom feature on the camea.  This wasn't it.





 This wasn't it either.  That white blob is actually a swan.





Now this is more like it.  Same distance, with the zoom feature working.



The weir on the Shannon at Athlone.  I'm told it isn't really visible from upriver and there were some fascinating boating accidents before they put in a, um,  well "fence" isn't the correct word but whatever it is, it keeps your boat from rocketing down the weir and dumping all and sundry into the Shannon.  There's a lock arrangement over on the other side that helps sailors avoid that bit of riparian excitement.


That swan again.  This time with the zoom lens.

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Today, "the Saturday after the second Sunday after Pentecost", is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Pauline Rite.  In my occasionally humble opinion this is one of the few inspired creations of that rite in that it makes the feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart immediately follow the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  This year it follows on first Saturday immediately after first Friday.

A poem for Our Lady by Dante Alighieri, translated by Msgr Ronald Knox:


     Maiden, yet a Mother,
     Daughter of thy Son,
     High beyond all other --
     Lowlier is none;
     Thou the consummation
     Planned by God's decree,
     When our lost creation
     Nobler rose in thee!


     Thus his place preparèd
     He who all things made
     'Mid his creatures tarried,
     In thy bosom laid;
     There his love he nourished,--
     Warmth that gave increase'
     To the Root whence flourished
     Our eternal peace.


     Nor alone thou hearest
     When thy name we hail;
     Often thou art nearest
     When our voices fail;
     Mirrored in thy fashion
     All creation's good,
     Mercy, might, compassion
     Grace thy womanhood.


     Lady, lest our vision
     Striving heavenward, fail,
     Still let thy petition
     With thy Son prevail,
     Unto whom all merit,
     Power and majesty,
     With the Holy Spirit
     And the Father be.


Found in Collins's edition of The Divine Office.

More on Our Lady's Immaculate Heart:

from the Fountain of Elias

from Recta Ratio


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Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Inclusivity and then some. . . .

The Reverend Mrs Schori comes out in favour of demonic possession.

That's not a point of view you see every day.


(Found via the ever-fascinating CMR.)


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