From the Mail

Sometimes you have to ramble through the internet underbrush to find the oddities.  Sometimes you just have to open your email software.  This from a daily service that is supposed to guide one through the mysteries of new technologies (and does a pretty good job of it, too):

In 2015, Godzilla received honorary Japanese citizenship and is listed as officially residing in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo.

Interesting to see Japan liberalizing its treatment of illegal aliens.

16 July: In Commemoratione Solemni Beatæ Mariæ Virginis de Monte Carmelo, Titularis et Patronæ totius Ordinis Carmelitarum

Today is the titular feast of the Carmelite Order in all of its branches.

The old 2d nocturn as Englished by the Anglican Breviary.

Fr Pius Parsch's piece on the feast from "The Church's Liturgical Year".

Since the Sabbatine  Privilege comes up for discussion every year at this time, this is worth mentioning again:

From the July/August 1980 number of The Maryfaithful: 

POPE PAUL V and the SABBATINE PRIVILEGE 

When certain Portuguese questioned the genuineness of the Sabbatine Privilege in the year 1609, the matter was thoroughly investigated by the Holy Office in Rome, and at the end of three years, on January 20, 1613, Pope Paul V approved the following: "It is lawful for the Carmelites to preach that the faithful may reverently believe...that the Blessed Virgin will assist by her continued intercession, by her pious suffrage and merits, and also by her special protection after their death, particularly on Saturday (which day has been dedicated to the most holy Virgin by the Church), the souls of those Brethren and members of the Confraternity who depart this life in charity, and who whilst living on earth have worn the Habit, have observed chastity according to their state of life, and have recited the Little Office, or, if they know not how to read, have observed the fasts of the Church and have abstained from flesh meats on Wednesdays and Saturdays (unless the feast of Christmas falls on either of these days.)"

And on the subject of kings . . .

. . . 211 years ago yesterday, the 13th of July, Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement Francis Xavier Stuart, the Cardinal Duke of York and de jure King Henry IX of Great Britain, France, and Ireland died in Frascati, the last of the Jacobite succession to publicly claim his right to the throne.

A precis of the life of His Grace and Eminence is here in the good old Catholic Encyclopædia.

July 14 . . .

a.k.a., "Bastille Day" and time for the annual reprint of the late Jerry Pournelle's piece on that day:

On July 14, 1789, the Paris mob aided by units of the National Guard stormed the Bastille Fortress which stood in what had been the Royal area of France before the Louvre and Tuilleries took over that function. The Bastille was a bit like the Tower of London, a fortress prison under direct control of the Monarchy. It was used to house unusual prisoners, all aristocrats, in rather comfortable durance. The garrison consisted of soldiers invalided out of service and some older soldiers who didn't want to retire; it was considered an honor to be posted there, and the garrison took turns acting as valets to the aristocratic prisoners kept there by Royal order (not convicted by any court). 

On July 14, 1789, the prisoner population consisted of four forgers, three madmen, and another. The forgers were aristocrats and were locked away in the Bastille rather than be sentenced by the regular courts. The madmen were kept in the Bastille in preference to the asylums: they were unmanageable at home, and needed to be locked away. The servants/warders were bribed to treat them well. The Bastille was stormed; the garrison was slaughtered to a man, some being stamped to death; their heads were displayed on pikes; and the prisoners were freed. The forgers vanished into the general population. The madmen were sent to the general madhouse. The last person freed was a young man who had challenged the best swordsman in Paris to a duel, and who had been locked up at his father's insistence lest he be killed. This worthy joined the mob and took on the name of Citizen Egalite. He was active in revolutionary politics until Robespierre had him beheaded in The Terror.

I can't figure out how to cite the original location.  Here's the location of the blog itself, still being maintained by Jerry's family.  Afraid you'll have to search for the original location yourself.

And this article remains  pertinent and of great interest, too.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Novena

The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a.k.a., the Scapular feast, is coming up in 9 days +1.  Which means it's time to begin the novena to Our Lady.  Some prayer books have appropriate novena prayers and there are several on the web.  I rather like this one taken from an old novena manual of the early part of the last century.

Does the 4th of July have an octave?

Well, it's in the novus ordo calendar with its own Mass.  It might, you know.  If it does, we're in the third day of it.

You will no doubt be delighted to learn that the ancestral manse has survived without a scratch our annual American orgy of patriotic pyromania.   This city does permit the safe-and-sane variety of fireworks (who comes up with these toe-curling descriptions, anyway?) and the evening of the 4th was filled with light and sound and the smell of gunpowder.  The grumpy side of me does hate to admit it but they are kind of fun to watch.

But the neighbourhood also has its fair share of the illegal variety which seems to consist entirely of small explosive devices.  And there's always one happy reveler who feels the need to set off a few at three in the morning.  Once I peel myself off the ceiling I can usually go back to sleep but on the whole I'd just as soon they didn't do that.  And I do hope none of the celebrants blew off any fingers.  (Yes, of course that's a real hope.  You're very cynical.)

4 July 2018

Well, here it the 4th day of July and not only is it the feast of St Ulric the bishop of Augsburg who was the first person ever canonized by a pope and Stephen Foster's birthday but it is also the 242d anniversary of the day the 2d Continental Congress formally adopted the declaration of  the 13 British colonies' independence from Great Britain.  We celebrate this every year with fireworks, small explosives, and assorted incendiary devices.  The later two are usually illegal but also ubiquitous.  Yes, it is once again scare-the-crap-out-of-your-household-pets day.

At the moment it is 5:31 and 58 seconds in the evening and the devotees of St Barbara, the patroness of artillerymen, have started in blasting already.

Happy 4th of July.

St Oliver Plunkett

St Oliver was martyred on 11 July, the Irish calendar keeps his feast on 10 July, and the Ordinariates of England and Australia keep it today, the 1st of July.

The American Ordinariate of the Chair of S Peter, alas, doesn't keep it at all.

St Oliver Plunkett, born in 1629,  was of a noble Irish family, educated and ordained in Rome.  After many years in Rome as an academic he was consecrated bishop and appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.  At that time his jurisdiction included the Hebrides and some other parts of Scotland. He was the last "official" martyr of the English reformation persecutions and the last of Titus Oates's victims.

The good old Catholic Encyclopædia give his vita here.  Wikipedia bases its life on the Catholic Encyclopædia but has a bit more information and includes and few pictures here.

Thinking about Euthanasia?

Then go here and read this.

One of the saddest things I can think of right now is that there are some hearts that are so calcified that they will be unmoved by this piece.

Original sin, I guess.

A Jacobite Exhibition at the Scottish National Museum

A new exhibition of Jacobite memorabilia. . . alas, not hereabouts in the lower-left corner of the USofA but in Scotland.  I'd love to see it but there's the commute. . . .

The Jacobite cause — as James’s supporters were called — began in 1688, when the Catholic James II was deposed by the Protestant William III. James was a brave soldier (his suit of armour here was the last to be made for a British monarch), but he failed to regain the crown. He left that challenge to his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, or James III. 

As the exhibition shows, the repressive and brutal actions of William and his successors, especially in Scotland, kept the Jacobite cause alive well into the 18th century. The document ordering the Massacre of Glencoe is on display, in all its chilling brevity; “You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the McDonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy . . . This is by the Kings [William III] speciall command.”

More here.

In Paradisum deducant te angeli

June was quite a month.  As I suppose some know, I play pipes for a good many funerals.  Most of the time I don't know the people and I am engaged by the mortuaries or cemeteries.  But lately the deceased have included a couple of good friends and my wife's godson who was the son of good friends.  Yesterday Mary and I had to split our forces and we each attended different funerals.  And this doesn't count two people who who died out of state whose services I couldn't attend, with or without pipes.

As we hear less and less about Purgatory from official sources, prayers for the dead seem more necessary and urgent all the time.

Oremus pro fidelium defunctorum.

1 July

Today is the old feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus. There are several worthwhile posts out there on the web about this feast day.  Here are a couple:  Fr Hunwicke's here and Charles Coulombe's here.

As both of them explain, the feast never quite made it into Bugninian rite despite there being several religious orders with that dedication and it being the patronal feast of Westminster Cathedral in London.  So that's why, things being what they are, you didn't celebrate the feast in your parish this Sunday, the first of July.

But it's still the month of the Precious Blood.   And a good time to recite the Litany of the Precious Blood of Jesus.