Well, this has been a disappointing week

We've waited the requisite 10 days and the epidural has not “kicked in” and Mary's back pain remains. She has some tablets for the pain and they work.  Up to a point.   They take the edge off.  But she's still in pain most of the time.  The next visit with the doctor is this week and we'll discuss the next step.

Someone stole a couple of Mary's checks, washed out the payees, inserted a couple of aliases, and changed the amounts: one from $30 to $348 and one from $40 to $409.  An alert bank teller caught the $409 one before it could be cashed.  But the thief was successful with the $348 one.  It doesn't put us in the poor house but it is a bit of a nuisance.  We've had to spend a couple of hours at the bank closing the old account and opening a new one.  And then trying to deal – only occasionally successfully – with the outstanding checks and changing the direct deposits.  And there went a significant chunk of that week.  Not to mention missing band practice.

And then this morning one opens the internet to find that Hilary (the good one, not the evil one with double Ls, late of American politics) is bowing out of analyzing church and, sometimes, state.  I don't know how I'm going to find out what it is I think about things now.  Oh, all right.  I'm not quite that hopeless.  But she does have a wonderful way of making sense of things, of putting the pieces of the puzzle together.   Disappointing, as I said, but I do see her point.  Nine or ten years ago The Inn quoted an article in The Wanderer which, while not precisely on point, is I think relevant.  It's here.  It's pretty much the attitude and practice I try to follow.  I can hardly blame someone for doing something similar.  Though I shall miss her commentary.

And finally,  I sat down this morning in the big, black chair with a mug of coffee and twiddled the appropriate knobs on the Grundig for the Saturday Met broadcast.   But what did I hear? 

Hoyo to ho.

Bloody Wagner. 

I misread the schedule.  Tosca isn't until next week.

A very disappointing week indeed.

On Learning Something New Every Day

If you go here you'll find a comprehensive essay by Fr Z on just exactly when you're allowed to begin the Easter Vigil.   And end it, too.  Not only may you not start too early, i.e., pre-sunset, but you mustn't "go straight on 'til morning" either.  The details are at the link.

And why do I cite you to all this?  Because, as you ought to know by now, I find liturgical minutiae infinitely fascinating.  It's probably a character flaw but there you are.

Lady Day in Spring

Today 25 March is the feast of the Annunciation to Our Lady that she was to be the Mother of God -- if she would agree.  She did.  Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum. . . .

Something on the day from Fr Phillip's page.

And from Mrs Vidal

Bishop Schneider: Spot On

If you haven't read Bishop Athanasius Schneider's essay "On the Question of a Heretical Pope", which you can find here, you really ought to.  As a practical matter, it says all there is to say about the matter.

Steve Skojec's commentary on it is worth a look, too.  It's here.

Still the weary folk are pining for the hour that brings release.

It occurs to me that the lyrics of the recessional hymn today bear repeating.  They got my attention anyway.

Judge eternal, throned in splendor,
Lord of lords and King of kings,
With thy living fire of judgement
Purge this land of bitter things:
Solace all its wide dominion
With the healing of thy wings. 

Still the weary folk are pining
For the hour that brings release,
And the city’s crowded clangor
Cries aloud for sin to cease:
And the homesteads and the woodlands
Plead in silence for their peace. 

Crown, O God, thine own endeavor;
Cleave our darkness with thy sword;
Feed the faint and hungry heathen
With the richness of thy word;
Cleanse the body of this nation
Through the glory of the lord.  Amen.

The words were by Henry Scott Holland, an Anglo-Catholic priest around the turn of the last century and a great friend of GK Chesterton.  (The music isn't so bad either: Johann Christoph Bach.)