Proud Mummy moments...

 

My eldest child was Master of Ceremonies today at High Mass celebrated by Fr Finigan at Our Lady of the Rosary (Mac, who is far defter at taking photos than I, has some lovely ones on her blog). For an 11 year old he's racked up a fair bit of serving experience, so he was much less nervous than might be expected: he started serving Holy Mass in the Novus Ordo after his First Holy Communion in May 2010 and started serving the Vetus Ordo a few months later. He served low Mass at the Altar of the Transfiguration in Saint Peter's Basilica last year when we were in Rome for the Una Cum Papa Nostro pilgrimage, in France with the Institute of Christ the King and in various other parishes on our travels. MC is a different job though, complicated, detailed: not only does he have to know where everyone on the sanctuary needs to be at any given moment in the Mass, he also needs to remember all the responses in Latin and find the right pages in the missal at the right moments to ensure that everything happens when it should: a massive responsibility on those small shoulders. It's funny, I look at this little boy, who loves his Lego Hobbit set and his pet mice and who spends his days climbing trees, up there on the sanctuary: utterly capable, completely absorbed in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and I thank God for the many blessings in our lives: our parish, our priests, our friends, our return to the Faith, our marriage and our family. Deo gratias!

 

A Day With Mary at Our Lady of the Rosary

"A week's pilgrimage in one day" is how someone once described A Day With Mary to me, and I think that it was an apposite choice of words. We're home, tired but happy, after a day spent in the company of Our Lady and her Blessed Son. How can I describe the day? A sung Traditional Latin Mass, twenty decades of the Rosary, hours of Adoration, Benediction, two processions (just imagine - Our Lady's statue carried on a bower of blossoms through the winding suburban streets of South London...and if that's not wonderful enough, imagine that procession now led by the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament winding through the same streets a few hours later), a Divine Mercy chaplet, scores of people availing themselves of the sacrament of penance, beautiful hymns to Our Lady and in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, sermons that bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart, a bookstall to feed your head and a seemingly endless supply of beautiful religious objects for sale... This gives you a small flavour of the itinerary but little idea of the graces that flow from a day like this.

Why not join us next year ...or find A Day with Mary near you...

Our Lady's crown

Crowning Our Lady's statue

Marian procession

Oh Fatima, farewell...

Mantilla mayhem

Somehow, somewhere our family has managed to lose three mantillas at church in as many months. It's annoying and puzzling in equal measures. I lose my red leather gloves, they turn up in the lost and found box. But three mantillas -- zoop! -- disappeared forever. Or have they? It's sort of like a lacy version of Schrödinger's cat. Mac suggested that I check the spare mantilla drawer, but no luck there either. Yes, I did say Spare Mantilla Drawer. How cool is that? Does your church have one? Nyah-nyah.

And speaking of cool -- well, just check this out. A parish like ours is worth any number of self-vapourising mantillas: perhaps it's fueled by mantilla power. I may stock up on a few extras just in case...