Joy to Thee, O Queen of Heaven!

Our Lady's Easter antiphon, prayed until Trinity Sunday.  Sung here at All Saints, Margaret Street in London.


Joy to Thee, O Queen of Heaven! Alleluia
He Whom Thou was meet to bear, Alleluia
As He promised  hath arisen!  Alleluia
Pour for us to God Thy prayer!  Alleluia

Easter Day

Hæc dies quam fecit Dominus! Exultemus et lætemur in ea!

A little more difficult to do this year than most:  no Mass, no Holy Communion, no Easter confession, no Easter water, no singing with the choir.

Watching the Triduum and Easter Mass on the computer has its pluses and its minuses.  There is at least a vicarious participation and for a little while one is almost there.  Almost.  And then one is brought up short.  That's not the Blessed Sacrament; it's an electronic representation of an event going on elsewhere, and you, my friend, are not going to be receiving Holy Communion for the . . . what? . . . 4th or 5th Sunday in a row?

At the risk of appearing a bit p.o.d., I am not only missing Mass, I am very much missing Mass.

Ian Paisley is very far from being my favourite politician but I read that he had a little sign on his desk which is very suitable to the circumstances:  

"Hallelujah, anyway."

Holy Saturday Liturgy

For anyone who may be roving the internet this evening at 7:07 pm PDT looking for an Easter Vigil Service you might be pleased with that being live-streamed at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham here.

To be sure,  you've missed a good bit already.   And this will be a pointless post in a couple of hours but FWIW, the link is above.

Come Pray the Rosary

My favourite rosary site comepraytherosary.org has finally come up with a new version and is now viewable in all or most browsers.  For a while there as more and more browsers refused to show sites relying on Flash I could only access it on Mickey$oft's Edge.  And now the new Edge version doesn't display Flash sites either.  Fortunately, the Rosary site now sports a new Flashless version.

Take it for a test run.  It's here. 

(At least once the old site popped up.  Clicking the refresh button cured that.)

Salvator Mundi

From the Daily Office all during Holy Week:

Salvator Mundi.

Antiphon: O SAVIOUR of the world who by thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us : * save us and help us we humbly beseech thee O Lord.
Thou didst save thy disciples when ready to perish : * hear us and save us we humbly beseech thee.
Let the pitifulness of thy great mercy : * loose us from our sins we humbly beseech thee.
Make it appear that thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer : * O save us that we may praise thee we humbly beseech thee.
Draw near according to thy promise from the throne of thy glory : * look down and hear our crying we humbly beseech thee.
Come again and dwell with us, O Lord Christ Jesus : * abide with us for ever we humbly beseech thee.
And when thou shalt appear with pow'r and great glory : * may we be made like unto thee, in thy glorious Kingdom.
Antiphon: O SAVIOUR of the world who by thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us : * save us and help us we humbly beseech thee O Lord.

It seemed more than usually appropriate this year.

A Tune for the Middle of Holy Week

. . . which doesn't actually have anything to do with Holy Week, per se.  But perhaps it will provide a little cheer for this Spy Wednesday.  At least hereabouts we have a bit of sun at the moment, although the cheerful weather lady on channel 9 advises that rain is in the offing.

Anyway.   Herewith Gary West on Scottish smallpipes playing "Scarce of Tatties" (in spite of that being one of the things the markets don't appear to be scarce of at the moment) and "The Famous Baravan" (which I had never heard of before, the tune title to the contrary notwithstanding).

The Case of the Missing Chinese Research Paper

The  paper, it seems, explained where the covid-19 virus really came from.  It wasn't the local market.

Read all about it here.

(Fascinating to note how both the ChiComs and the Vatican share this serene and utterly unwarranted confidence in their ability to make things vanish from the internet.)

Talk About a Remnant

Palm Sunday (April 5): Online Masses - 9AM w/Fr. Baaten; 12PM w/Fr. Bartus; 2PM w/Fr. Alan. At Holy Martyrs in Murrieta at 3PM - "Drive Thru" Distribution of Palms & Confessions and/or Holy Communion.

That is what our pastor is planning for Palm Sunday.  So far as I am aware that is the sum total of the public celebrations of Catholicism available in southern California on Palm Sunday.  According to their websites even the FSSP parish and Fr Perez's lovely little chapel are closed for the duration.

(If you were wondering, no I'm not in Murrieta.  That's two dioceses away.  But our priest is founding three parishes in SoCal and one of them is in Murrieta.  And since he hasn't mastered bi-location yet, Murrieta wins the gold ring.)

"When Our Churches Open Again. . ."

From Phil Lawler some interesting questions for our most reverend fathers in God:

Why did you forbid the administration of the sacraments? For reasons of public health— and in many cases, because of emergency government regulations— you were forced to curtail public ceremonies. But were you forced to issue a blanket prohibition? Weren’t there ways to allow some acts of public worship, with appropriate safeguards? Did you explore those possibilities thoroughly?

Many more interesting questions here.