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Post by Tomas on Apr 30, 2022 12:02:11 GMT
Today we will celebrate St. Peter of Verona, a saint I hadn´t even heard of before. Born by heretics then turned Dominican friar and leader of the inquisition, only to be murdered by the latter (not by his own kin though). Found this eulogy by St. Thomas of Aquino in his honour: Here silent is Christ’s Herald; Here quenched, the People’s Light; Here lies the martyred Champion Who fought Faith’s holy fight. The Voice the sheep heard gladly, The light they loved to see He fell beneath the weapons Of graceless Cathari. The Saviour crowns His Soldier; His praise the people psalm. The Faith he kept adorns him With martyr’s fadeless palm. His praise new marvels utter, New light he spreads abroad And now the whole wide city Knows well the path to God. (Another great Dominican, third order St. Catherine of Siena have her feast today NO and tomorrow VO.) Can I confess not having heard of Mary Elisabeth Hasselbald until her relic was brought to our chapel this week? I found her story significant for a few reasons- a 20th century Swedish saint is unusual of course, as is her adaption of Brigittine order,starting an active branch. Is Hasselbald the only person both canonized by Rome and proclaimed 'Righteous Among the Nations' by Judaism for her role of sheltering Jews in Rome during the darkest days? As the prayer we used mentioned her foundress too there was a little link there with the observing of St Catherine's day this week also- two of Europe's patrons standing against the backdrop of the raging tempests of our own times. St. Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad and the Bridgettines have been well regarded by all here in Sweden. Medieval foundress St. Birgitta (Bridget in English) has had an overwhelming status till today despite being a strictly Catholic hardliner. Glad to hear your own church received a relic!
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Post by Tomas on Apr 30, 2022 12:07:20 GMT
Photos of a prayerful doer.
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Post by Tomas on Jun 4, 2022 16:49:42 GMT
St. Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad is celebrated today. These days must be the most blessed days in the whole liturgical year apart from Easter! Last week Ascension we had the Swedish Cardinal in liturgy for confirmation of 25 girls and boys, and today was First Holy Communion for 47 children! (Along with 43 Chaldean children at the same time in the same parish but in their own chapel). After assisting as a door man (checking names of the children and the number of attendants when they arrived, trying to hush people in the vestibule during Mass, etc) the afternoon was spent invited to a wonderful family from Central America at a home congratulation gathering afterwards.
On top of all this, it was also Sacred Heart Friday in the very month of the Sacred Heart, and today also First Saturday with Our Lady of Fátima...
Since not really keen to go another round back to church I searched the internet to find a suitable meditation for the 15 minutes envisaged to the Rosary. Also there was a blessed find, in a page never visited before from a university site in Kansas. Turned out to be a classic place of learning, founded back in the mid-19th century. Such surprises, and so many, just makes me wonder how good the Catholic life still can be in the real spheres and far off the somehow over-politicised web battles.
Will post only a short quote from one part in the Rosary meditation mentioned. Each mystery had a Bible passage followed by around 8-12 themed separate wordings like this one, but I choose this as one to be particularly catching. At least I had never thought of the thing so concentrated and am very fond of it.
Here it goes,
"Christ’s appearance on the road to Emmaus is like Mass. He tells the disciples about the Scriptures, breaks bread, then disappears. The message: We must now seek him in the Eucharist."
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Post by Séamus on Jun 5, 2022 9:16:47 GMT
St. Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad is celebrated today. These days must be the most blessed days in the whole liturgical year apart from Easter! Last week Ascension we had the Swedish Cardinal in liturgy for confirmation of 25 boys, and today was First Holy Communion for 47 children! (Along with 43 Chaldean children at the same time in the same parish but in their own chapel). After assisting as a door man (checking names of the children and the number of attendants when they arrived, trying to hush people in the vestibule during Mass, etc) the afternoon was spent invited to a wonderful family from Central America at a home congratulation gathering afterwards. On top of all this, it was also Sacred Heart Friday in the very month of the Sacred Heart, and today also First Saturday with Our Lady of Fátima... Since not really keen to go another round back to church I searched the internet to find a suitable meditation for the 15 minutes envisaged to the Rosary. Also there was a blessed find, in a page never visited before from a university site in Kansas. Turned out to be a classic place of learning, founded back in the mid-19th century. Such surprises, and so many, just makes me wonder how good the Catholic life still can be in the real spheres and far off the somehow over-politicised web battles. Will post only a short quote from one part in the Rosary meditation mentioned. Each mystery had a Bible passage followed by around 8-12 themed separate wordings like this one, but I choose this as one to be particularly catching. At least I had never thought of the thing so concentrated and am very fond of it. Here it goes, "Christ’s appearance on the road to Emmaus is like Mass. He tells the disciples about the Scriptures, breaks bread, then disappears. The message: We must now seek him in the Eucharist." The presence of Eastern rites,often brought by economic or actual refugees, can be one solution to the empty-church-syndrome of many older cities. Or not so old cities. One chapel in Perth recently transitioned from Norbertine to Maronite. I think this thread was originally begun by Mr Maolsheachlann for Pentecost. Funnily enough the commemoration of St Erasmus in the extraordinary form last Thursday connected in my head through an image of his martyrdom (apparently attributed to Sebastian Ricci, Milan 1690s),so dark and dismal- as murder and torture actually are- some of the persons and animals quite spectral-looking,even the angels are in the shadows. Somehow,though, it's not the saint having his intestines wound out that unsettles;it's the discarded mitre, crozier and (assumedly episcopal) garments being left like rubbish on the ground. It possibly displays a mood very much like that of the cenacle in the days before the Holy Spirit arrived,dark;one cloud being the reality of the fragility of their own circle. What was the artist's views on bishops or bishops that he himself experienced when choosing to place the mitre on the floor near the instruments of torture rather than in the hands of the cherubs,which he could easily have done? But I'm glad that Stockholm seems to have an archbishop to be happy with
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Post by Tomas on Jun 5, 2022 14:38:48 GMT
St. Maria Elisabeth Hesselblad is celebrated today. These days must be the most blessed days in the whole liturgical year apart from Easter! Last week Ascension we had the Swedish Cardinal in liturgy for confirmation of 25 boys, and today was First Holy Communion for 47 children! (Along with 43 Chaldean children at the same time in the same parish but in their own chapel). After assisting as a door man (checking names of the children and the number of attendants when they arrived, trying to hush people in the vestibule during Mass, etc) the afternoon was spent invited to a wonderful family from Central America at a home congratulation gathering afterwards. On top of all this, it was also Sacred Heart Friday in the very month of the Sacred Heart, and today also First Saturday with Our Lady of Fátima... Since not really keen to go another round back to church I searched the internet to find a suitable meditation for the 15 minutes envisaged to the Rosary. Also there was a blessed find, in a page never visited before from a university site in Kansas. Turned out to be a classic place of learning, founded back in the mid-19th century. Such surprises, and so many, just makes me wonder how good the Catholic life still can be in the real spheres and far off the somehow over-politicised web battles. Will post only a short quote from one part in the Rosary meditation mentioned. Each mystery had a Bible passage followed by around 8-12 themed separate wordings like this one, but I choose this as one to be particularly catching. At least I had never thought of the thing so concentrated and am very fond of it. Here it goes, "Christ’s appearance on the road to Emmaus is like Mass. He tells the disciples about the Scriptures, breaks bread, then disappears. The message: We must now seek him in the Eucharist." The presence of Eastern rites,often brought by economic or actual refugees, can be one solution to the empty-church-syndrome of many older cities. Or not so old cities. One chapel in Perth recently transitioned from Norbertine to Maronite. I think this thread was originally begun by Mr Maolsheachlann for Pentecost. Funnily enough the commemoration of St Erasmus in the extraordinary form last Thursday connected in my head through an image of his martyrdom (apparently attributed to Sebastian Ricci, Milan 1690s),so dark and dismal- as murder and torture actually are- some of the persons and animals quite spectral-looking,even the angels are in the shadows. Somehow,though, it's not the saint having his intestines wound out that unsettles;it's the discarded mitre, crozier and (assumedly episcopal) garments being left like rubbish on the ground. It possibly displays a mood very much like that of the cenacle in the days before the Holy Spirit arrived,dark;one cloud being the reality of the fragility of their own circle. What was the artist's views on bishops or bishops that he himself experienced when choosing to place the mitre on the floor near the instruments of torture rather than in the hands of the cherubs,which he could easily have done? But I'm glad that Stockholm seems to have an archbishop to be happy with Great, painful, painting, never seen before this post here. Yes our Bishop (formally not Archbishop since Stockholm is the only diocese) is well respected among Swedes outside the Catholic diaspora also. Weakest point would be administrative skills, more of a praying pious monk, so much to be grateful for in these days when there are more urgent spiritual troubles than to manage clerical or other bureaucracies.
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Post by assisi on Jun 5, 2022 21:33:28 GMT
Yesterday was the feast of Pentecost. It occurred to me, listening to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles at Mass, that the Holy Spirit inspired the disciples to speak MANY tongues, rather than one tongue, on this day. Perhaps this is encouraging to Christians who are also nationalists. I have recently been reading an abridged version of the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. Certainly it is very Christian. The greatest sittings of the Round Table appear to be at Pentecost and Christmas. The Knights would gather hoping for new adventures and challenges and they duly arrived like clockwork. Like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, being one of them. Nice to notice that Gawain travels past Holyhead in Wales looking for the castle of the Green Knight in the forest of the Wirral. As an aside, Monty Python parodied mercilessly the Arthurian legends in the Holy Grail and probably elsewhere. To our postmodern minds the legends seem very innocent, rigid and perhaps a little pompous as knights invariably meet with beautiful damsels in distress and so an adventure starts and a chance for a knight to prove his chivalry. But I do wonder if someone like John Cleese looks back ruefully at the damage he may have done to anything that was remotely sacred in the 1960's, like royalty, religion and rural life. He now is one of the more vocal opponents of wokism, but may have battered an easy target too violently in his heyday and contributed somewhat to the current mess.
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Post by Séamus on Jul 17, 2022 9:24:21 GMT
While it wasn't highly ranked even in the older missals,Our Lady of Mount Carmel (yesterday) is a more popular feast among traditional Catholics, usually with imagery of Our Lady handing out laymen's scapulars surrounded by souls leaving purgatory;eager Carmelites may also today reflect on the imagery of the beatified Martyrs of Compiegne whose feast is 17th,the following day,Mother Teresa of St Augustine and her nuns mounting the scaffold in flowing brown habits.
I took interest though in an image featured in one publication: a pre-Discalced-era painting of Mary (Madonna of Carmel, Monetto da Brescia 1520-2) -the difference couldn't be more marked...one of the three friars pictured may have been Simon Stock who still graces scapulars today but Our Lady (without the Infant or a scapular to speak of) is otherwise flanked by Jewish Carmelite martyr Angelus, looking quite affable;a patriarchal figure may be St Albert of Jerusalem,perhaps known in Whitefriar Street but not immediately associated in popular devotion elsewhere in our days when more recent Teresa,Thérèse,John,Edith Stein,Elizabeth of the Trinity,Teresa of Chile,etc might take pride of place were a similar painting to be created. One friar is curiously coming out of the floor almost Dali-like,perhaps a creative use of space by the artist,but suggesting that maybe even the most surreal forms of modernism may have found precedent in the past. At least one of the women seems to be a cloistered nun,but primarily, it's laity that stand beneath Mary's mantle,maybe aristocratic members of a confraternity.
It mightn't have meant anything except that relics of Sts Louis and Zélie Martin visited our chapel last week,are still on the altar in fact, a further embodiment of the Carmelite tradition in secular life,which is all most of us can ever live even if we desired otherwise.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 18, 2022 8:47:15 GMT
While it wasn't highly ranked even in the older missals,Our Lady of Mount Carmel (yesterday) is a more popular feast among traditional Catholics, usually with imagery of Our Lady handing out laymen's scapulars surrounded by souls leaving purgatory;eager Carmelites may also today reflect on the imagery of the beatified Martyrs of Compiegne whose feast is 17th,the following day,Mother Teresa of St Augustine and her nuns mounting the scaffold in flowing brown habits. I took interest though in an image featured in one publication: a pre-Discalced-era painting of Mary (Madonna of Carmel, Monetto da Brescia 1520-2) -the difference couldn't be more marked...one of the three friars pictured may have been Simon Stock who still graces scapulars today but Our Lady (without the Infant or a scapular to speak of) is otherwise flanked by Jewish Carmelite martyr Angelus, looking quite affable;a patriarchal figure may be St Albert of Jerusalem,perhaps known in Whitefriar Street but not immediately associated in popular devotion elsewhere in our days when more recent Teresa,Thérèse,John,Edith Stein,Elizabeth of the Trinity,Teresa of Chile,etc might take pride of place were a similar painting to be created. One friar is curiously coming out of the floor almost Dali-like,perhaps a creative use of space by the artist,but suggesting that maybe even the most surreal forms of modernism may have found precedent in the past. At least one of the women seems to be a cloistered nun,but primarily, it's laity that stand beneath Mary's mantle,maybe aristocratic members of a confraternity. It mightn't have meant anything except that relics of Sts Louis and Zélie Martin visited our chapel last week,are still on the altar in fact, a further embodiment of the Carmelite tradition in secular life,which is all most of us can ever live even if we desired otherwise. I was at an Opus Dei picnic at the weekend and one of the priests mentioned that it was the feast of our Lady of Carmel.
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Post by hilary on Jul 19, 2022 11:46:49 GMT
I was at an Opus Dei picnic at the weekend Ah go on, tell us a bit more!
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Post by hilary on Jul 19, 2022 11:52:26 GMT
Sorry Séamus, I'm not sure how to edit.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jul 19, 2022 13:37:00 GMT
Ah go on, tell us a bit more! I was the one at the picnic! There's not much to tell. My parish is run by Opus Dei priests, and I'm also friendly with a few people in Opus Dei, so I actually found myself getting three different invitations to the barbecue (not actually a picnic, that was a mistake). The barbecue was OK except that too many people turned up without RSVP-ing, so it was quite hard to get any meat, there was a permanent ring of people around the grill waiting. Also, all the soft drinks were zero sugar, which is actually much worse for you than sugar, as my wife has often explained to me. I'm not a member of Opus Dei myself, nor even drawn to their spirituality. I admire their zeal and their orthodoxy, but there's a bit too much contrived heartiness about Opus Dei for my liking. They put a huge amount of energy and money into self-promotion, as far as I can see. And the emphasis on work is a bit foreign to the Irish, who have never taken work all that seriously. You do your bit but you don't make a song and dance about it, or delude yourself that it's terribly important-- unless you happen to be a heart surgeon, or something.
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Post by hilary on Jul 19, 2022 14:44:50 GMT
Ah go on, tell us a bit more! I was the one at the picnic! There's not much to tell. My parish is run by Opus Dei priests, and I'm also friendly with a few people in Opus Dei, so I actually found myself getting three different invitations to the barbecue (not actually a picnic, that was a mistake). The barbecue was OK except that too many people turned up without RSVP-ing, so it was quite hard to get any meat, there was a permanent ring of people around the grill waiting. Also, all the soft drinks were zero sugar, which is actually much worse for you than sugar, as my wife has often explained to me. I'm not a member of Opus Dei myself, nor even drawn to their spirituality. I admire their zeal and their orthodoxy, but there's a bit too much contrived heartiness about Opus Dei for my liking. They put a huge amount of energy and money into self-promotion, as far as I can see. And the emphasis on work is a bit foreign to the Irish, who have never taken work all that seriously. You do your bit but you don't make a song and dance about it, or delude yourself that it's terribly important-- unless you happen to be a heart surgeon, or something. That's interesting. Yes, the artificial sweeteners and colours are bad. Water, maybe fizzy, but then you have to think of the water table being depleted and sold in plastic bottles. I don't know much about Opus Dei but wonder how many people are members in Ireland and whether they have much influence in hospitals etc.
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Post by Séamus on Jul 20, 2022 9:01:48 GMT
Ah go on, tell us a bit more! I was the one at the picnic! There's not much to tell. My parish is run by Opus Dei priests, and I'm also friendly with a few people in Opus Dei, so I actually found myself getting three different invitations to the barbecue (not actually a picnic, that was a mistake). The barbecue was OK except that too many people turned up without RSVP-ing, so it was quite hard to get any meat, there was a permanent ring of people around the grill waiting. Also, all the soft drinks were zero sugar, which is actually much worse for you than sugar, as my wife has often explained to me. I'm not a member of Opus Dei myself, nor even drawn to their spirituality. I admire their zeal and their orthodoxy, but there's a bit too much contrived heartiness about Opus Dei for my liking. They put a huge amount of energy and money into self-promotion, as far as I can see. And the emphasis on work is a bit foreign to the Irish, who have never taken work all that seriously. You do your bit but you don't make a song and dance about it, or delude yourself that it's terribly important-- unless you happen to be a heart surgeon, or something. I can never help wondering whether most groups designed for laity are over-structured for the ultimate simplicity of their aim. Twice as over-structured if membership decreases,as will usually be the case when something soldiers on after it is no longer fashionable,and the actual work they do thins out. John Paul obviously saw lay movements as a replacement for,often rebellious and more often dwindling,religious orders. Francis may be on to a dimension of lay life that is worth mediation by highlighting of the role of Joseph and his unJesuit-like highlighting also of Joachim and Anne through Grandparents Sunday and his visit to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré near her feast next week. Synods and councils that call for more adaption to indigenous culture should note that the location was partly chosen on account of a strong native Canadian devotion to St Anne. It's reportedly one of the shrines known to be lined with crutches. Eighteenth Century atheists were known to remark that Lourdes was full of crutches but didn't have a single wooden leg;I doubt whether these would be convinced even if one of the rare reports of this throughout history were brought to mind,but His Holiness, perhaps echoing Thérèse,has,when writing of Joseph,pointed to the absence of miraculous transportation to Egypt in the Gospel...leave that to Habakkuk, Joseph was God's instrument for the time,not miraculous happenings, the Pope insists. As he visits Quebec to face a difficult situation next week we could perhaps paraphrase this to note that it was never willed that Mary should descend from the sky,but that Anne also performed, what should be the ultimate role of any movement- becoming God's answer to others.
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Post by Séamus on Jul 29, 2022 12:31:08 GMT
Ah go on, tell us a bit more! I was the one at the picnic! There's not much to tell. My parish is run by Opus Dei priests, and I'm also friendly with a few people in Opus Dei, so I actually found myself getting three different invitations to the barbecue (not actually a picnic, that was a mistake). The barbecue was OK except that too many people turned up without RSVP-ing, so it was quite hard to get any meat, there was a permanent ring of people around the grill waiting. Also, all the soft drinks were zero sugar, which is actually much worse for you than sugar, as my wife has often explained to me. I'm not a member of Opus Dei myself, nor even drawn to their spirituality. I admire their zeal and their orthodoxy, but there's a bit too much contrived heartiness about Opus Dei for my liking. They put a huge amount of energy and money into self-promotion, as far as I can see. And the emphasis on work is a bit foreign to the Irish, who have never taken work all that seriously. You do your bit but you don't make a song and dance about it, or delude yourself that it's terribly important-- unless you happen to be a heart surgeon, or something. Yesterday our mass-goers were blessed with a bone fragment of St Pedro Poveda y Castroverde. Reading notes on him,I couldn't help noticing that,before his own martyrdom,he too founded a lay organisation- mostly educational (and I've no idea how similar or unsimilar it would be to Opus Dei). Somehow from this time of slaughter of priests and religious (certainly Catholic laity also,but of interest that so many consecrated people were slaughtered by the communist side) very dedicated lay movements were born. The (extraordinary form) liturgical feast was obscure St Nazarius whom Sainte-Nazaire is named after,traditionally considered a non-ordained evangelist, evidence that Ambrose,who venerated his relics, and others appreciated people dedicated to the church who were neither clergy nor young spotless females. I was unaware of the historical Biafran Airlift until recently,when an article mentioning a production or documentary coming up on this event appeared a little while ago. While some Irish religious still obviously take interest in Nigeria- a sister, of course, gave an interview recently with a mainstream Irish paper- it's notable that Irish Sisters were numerous enough to be an integral part of this relief,while the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers had their own Holy Ghost Airlines operating,which took it's place alongside the Red Cross and others. (A few years later American nuns would distribute food at the State of Emergency that was the Woodstock festival- whether this was also a glimmer of the,then, strength of Catholic religious orders or a sign that they were beginning to loose the plot already is open to interpretation). It's worth a thought,though. Clergy and Religious orders had been part of pre-Civil War Spain's fabric,a least two now-canonized priests,and other Spaniards before or after the period, responded in a certain way to the mass killing of these by forming the seculars. In the Irish- and Anglo-influenced world and church we might experience a different kind of decimation,looking back at what the strong numbers of missionary religious could achieve just in our parents' days, and we are similarly faced with the invitation to a personal,if much humbler, response to what we are living through.
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Post by Séamus on Feb 24, 2023 8:53:37 GMT
"The respect with which Michael Collins was held by the IRA is best emphasised if I am permitted to go outside the period with which this book is properly concerned. In July 1922 I was a Republican prisoner....I was talking with some other prisoners on the night of August 22 1922 when the news came in that Michael Collins has been shot dead in West Cork. There was a heavy silence throughout the jail and ten minutes later from the corridor outside the top tier of cells I looked down on the extraordinary spectacle of about a thousand kneeling Republican prisoners spontaneously reciting the rosary aloud for the repose of the soul of the dead Michael Collins, President of the Free State Executive Council and Commander-in-chief of the Free State Forces" Tom Barry GUERRILLA DAYS IN IRELAND 1948
The extraordinary form today remembers St Matthias, which nearly always falls in Lent or at least after Septuagesima, in the old rite, while the May date of the modern rite tends to find the feast still in Eastertide. Both times seem to fit- he speaks of the events of Redemption like few of the other apostles,both aspects- before or after Holy Week- speaking of betrayal, despair, disloyalty, but eventually return, regrouping, perseverance. And springtime where it's least expected.
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