Getting Up-to-Date, which I sometimes am in some respects, although not many

It occured to me this morning that, although I visit 1Peter5 pretty much daily it still didn't feature on the blog list.  Or the news list or the Catholic list for that matter.  And it really ought to as it's an invaluable source for Catholic news and commentary.  So now it is linked over there on the left.

Which brings up the uncomfortable fact that the left-hand column is now so crowded and oddly organized that you'll be hard-pressed to find it.  The Inn really does need to be tidied up.  So fair warning here:  if you arrive at this spot and find The Inn has vanished, there's a pretty good chance it is only trying on a new template for size and will return once things get sorted.  Probably not going to tinker with it today.  But shortly, I hope.  Even I don't know what's over there any more.

25 September -- St Albert the Lawgiver

In the old Discalced Carmelite calendar this is the feast of St Albert the Lawgiver.  (The Ancient Observance kept it on the 16th of September.) The good old Catholic Encyclopædia discusses him here.  It includes this curiousity:

 The Bollandists call attention to this curious anomaly, that not at Vercelli, where he was Patriarch, not among the Canons Regular, to whom he properly belonged, but in the Order of the Carmelites, of which he was not a member, does he receive the honour of a saint. "That holy Order could not and ought not to lose the memory of him by whom it was ranked among the Orders approved by the Roman Church; in saying which", adds the writer, "I in no way wish to impugn the Carmelite claim of descent from Elias." At Vercelli Albert does not even figure as Blessed, and the Canons Regular honour him as a saint, but pay him no public cult.

The Ancient Observance Carmelites have a short life here, with a commentary and some collects.

From the old O.C.D. propers:

Tuæ benedictionis plenitudo super nos, quæsumus, Domine, copiosa descendat :  et jugiter sancti Alberti Confessoris tui atque Pontificis placare suffragiis. Per Dominum.  Amen.

24 September -- Our Lady of Walsingham

September 24 is the new(-ish) feast day of Our Lady of Walsingham, patroness of England and of the Ordinariates.

Fr Phillips on the apparition of Our Lady.

The website for the two shrines (and the village).

A collect for Our Lady of Walsingham:

O God, Who by the mystery of the Word, therein become Incarnate, didst in Thy mercy consecrate the House of the Blessed Virgin Mary; grant that, forsaking the tents of sinners, we may be found worthy to have our home in Thy holy dwelling-place.  Through the same Christ our Lord Who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, forever and ever.  Amen.

The Walsingham hymn:





A sermon for the day:




(And you can, as is so often the case with The Inn, click on the picture at the very top of this post and make it, not just larger, but positively brobdingnagian.)

23 September -- St Adamnan of Raphoe and Iona

Today is the feast of the 7th century Irish/Scottish saint and 9th Abbot of Iona, St Adamnan.  Grattan Flood in the good old Catholic Encyclopædia gives a brief life here.  It seems he was not only abbot of Iona but a sort of Abbot General of all the Columban houses in Ireland.  As a canonist he is said to be responsible for 

"the Cain Adamnain, or Canon of Adamnan . . . which freed women and children from the evils inseparable from war, forbidding them to be killed or made captive in times of strife."

It doesn't say what he thought about making them Army Rangers.

Marcella in her comprehensive Omnium Sanctorum Hiberniæ gives a little vignette from his life as a poor student here.

Come One, Come All

This wouldn't be much of an issue if we had a government that gave a toss about our borders.  And if the prisoners of ideology in Washington weren't inviting in our very own supply of potential mujahedeen.  But as it stands it appears we'll soon have a better chance at seeing jihad up close and personal.

Vespers of the Dead for the House of Stuart

It's on tomorrow at the Ordinariate's principal London church.  (Sudden thought: why isn't it a cathedral?  Or at perhaps a pro-cathedral, at least until they get an episcopus?)

In any event, the details are here.  Wish I could attend, but it's the commute, doncha know, what with me being 8 1/2 miles from the Pacific Ocean and all.

Impelled by the news on the radio this a.m.

When something comes up and you need to pray, the old Roman Missal always comes through:

O God, Who didst break the chains of blessed Peter the Apostle, and didst restore him unscathed to liberty:  loose the chains of Thy handmaid now in captivity, and through the merits of the same Apostle, grant also to her to escape unscathed.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Votive collect #35, "For  Prisoners"
The Daily Missal and Liturgical Manual
(The Roman Missal, 1962)

The Dead Voters' Society

If you are registered to vote in Franklin County, Illinois, there is an almost 50-50 chance you are dead. Or live somewhere else. 

The small county in the southern part of the state has nearly twice as many registered voters as voting-age adults, according to a report released last week by the Washington-based Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Lots more fun here.