"Just stick with Hans Kung...": Surreal petrol station conversations OR Tales of Z-swag in the wilds of South London

After our van was stolen in a burglary last year, we replaced it with another, slightly less snazzy, one. I was determined to make this new one unstealable, and so applied a selection of stickers that would take hours to remove thereby making our van immediately recognisable and, hopefully, less attractive to any thief. I mean, can you imagine a car thief bombing down the road with "Lex Orandi / Lex Credendi" on the bumper, "We love our priest" on the side window and a large image of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour on the windscreen? Didn't think so. And that's only a small selection of the adhesive novelties bedecking our vehicle.

We also had it blessed. Fr Finigan blessed our van using the formula for the blessing of chariots. In Latin.

 

We also named it -- Nino, after the virgin saint -- as we collected it on 15th Dec.

 

...and so far our precautions appear to have worked: we are still in possession of our van. It has not been stolen. It has, however garnered a few puzzled looks.

The stickers have attracted attention. A few days after I put a "Thank you Pope Benedict" sticker on the boot (that's "trunk" for readers across the pond), I was filling up with diesel when an older lady in a car at the pump behind started gesturing rather excitedly at me. Her husband was dressed in North African type clothing and she was wearing a veil over her hair so I assumed that they were Muslim. Perhaps my assumption was wrong: as I looked questioningly at her she gestured again at the back of the car and clearly mouthed "Pope Benedict! Pope Benedict!" then gave me repeated "thumbs up" signs with a huge smile on her face.

More recently, my husband parked at a petrol station to nip in and buy something. As he parked the van, a man in the car beside him gestured and said something out his window in my husband's direction. As he was in a hurry, and it was clear that whatever the man was saying was friendly, my husband smiled, parked the car and went into the shop. He was standing in the queue to pay when a voice behind him said "So: 'Save the Liturgy / Save the world' -- what does that mean, then?" Rather surprised (as well as caught somewhat off guard -- I should point out that *I* plastered the vehicle in stickers, not my far more sensible husband), he turned around to see a pleasant looking chap in his late 60s (spoiler: dangerous age) behind him. In answer to the question, hubby explained that if we start to erode the things that really matter in the liturgy, we can start to let other things slip as well, so that no only the quality of our worship but our relationship with Truth itself is eroded (actually, when he told me the story Hubby was far more lucid and eloquent, but he declined to write a guest post so you'll have to make do with my bodged retelling). The well dressed man who had asked the question looked intrigued: "you mean like what's happened with the Anglicans?" he said. As my husband is far more tactful (and sensible - have I said that already?) than I, he refused to be drawn on this replying "some people might say that". "Well," retorted his questioner, "I'm an Anglican priest (sic) and I think that the most important thing is to spread the message of Christianity as widely as possibly by any means" (or words to that effect). My husband acknowledged the importance of evangelisation, (and, don't forget, was in a hurry) and turned to pay for his goods. As he passed the man on his way out he heard the words "Just stick with Hans Kung and you'll be fine". This stopped hubby in his tracks. He wasn't sure whether he had heard correctly. "What?!" The man repeated his words. Hubby shook his head. "I'm no expert on Hans Kung" he ventured, "but it seems to me that Kung's goal is the utter annihilation of the Catholic Church". The man from the car looked shocked "Oh no, he said, Hans Kung will be the saviour of the Catholic Church". As I may have mentioned, my husband is far more sensible than I am, and he did the only sensible thing under the circumstances...
...he told the man that they'd have to agree to disagree on that point, then hopped in the van and drove home to tell me the story.

And that, folks, is what happens when you take Z-swag out into the wilds of Kent. You've been warned.

 

Meal options for Lent...

Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, we love you! And here's why...

Unusually, I have just spent a week away from connectivity - no Internet, mobile phone or other data connection: our family had travelled up to the Lancashire moors to celebrate my Grandfather-in-law's 100th birthday. We had a wonderful time, with family from all over the world coming to celebrate until...

...yesterday morning, For no discernible reason I felt an 'itch' to turn on the television. As we don't own a TV at home, this is quite unusual . We had been staying in rooms above a pub in the edge of the Lancashire moors, and my husband and children had gone off after breakfast to pick up my in-laws who were visiting from North America. I was tidying our room and suddenly decided on a whim to see whether or not the TV worked and just happened to switch on BBC News 24 to see images of our Holy Father broadcast live with the announcement that he had just made.

I'm not the first Catholic blogger to say that I was shocked. Shocked is probably the wrong word. Bereaved comes closer. While I understand on an intellectual level what Cardinal Arinze is getting at here


I think that everyone who heard the news has been affected in a profoundly personal way. I felt bereft. My first thought was "Holy Father, where should we go? What should we do?" I felt small and childlike and lost. Were is my father going? I dropped down to my knees and prayed a decade of the Rosary. I wondered: " Beloved Pope Benedict - our Holy Father - what will we do without you?"

I instantly remembered how I felt when I heard that Pope Benedict had been elected in 2005: ELATED. At the time I didn't know why, exactly, it was so important to me that he became Pope rather than any other - but I was already blundering towards traditionalism (blundering meaning that nothing else felt right, nothing else answered the questions that had been left unanswered by decades in the Novus Ordo) - and I had a deep sense that having the then Cardinal Joesph Ratzinger as Pope mattered. 

Years on, I can confirm that it was a defining moment in my reversion to Holy Mother Church. Yes, I was already a Catholic "revert" but Pope Benedict defined and refined my faith through his encyclicals and books. I devoured them. I professed - and continue to profess - gratitude for his clarification of the position of the Traditional Latin Mass. When the Moto Proprio came out in 2007 I was primed and receptive. Hungry for spiritual nourishment, I asked my (then) pp whether we might have a monthly Traditional Latin Mass as there were several families in the parish who were very keen to have one. I was told that I was getting all the Latin I could expect in our Novus Ordo use of the Gloria, Agnus Dei and Sanctus from Mass VIII throughout the year. We had "some" Latin - what more could I want?

Indeed: how much Latin could anybody want? "Feed my sheep" said our Lord, and indeed. as a family, we were hungry.Starving. Both my husband and myself had come from nominally Catholic families. "Culturally" Catholic families, one could say. We had reverted from an agnostic / atheistic / lackadaisically Catholic point of view, towards an orthodox, traditionalist point of view. Pope Benedict XIV provided spiritual food for the last stages of that journey, and for that we will be forever grateful. He provided the signposts that gave our journey direction.

I was born in 1969. I received my First Holy Communion in 1978 with little or no catechises. I was confirmed in 1983 with even less catechises: I didn't even manage to have a saint's name for my confirmation name! (Priestly readers: is there any remedy for this?)

I returned to the Church I believe in large part due to the workings of the Holy Spirit. My husband and I were married and had our children baptised. We went to church every Sunday and Holy day of Obligation, and I often took the children on weekdays. We felt as though we were hungry. We were looking for more, and as well-meaning as it was, our Novus Ordo parish wasn' t giving us the spiritual food that we craved.

I mention this all to explain why I consider myself to be of the "Benedict XVI" generation. Sure, I was 35 when Cardinal Ratzinger became our Holy Father, but for me (and for many of my age and generation) this was a defining moment. Pope Benedict XVI was unambiguous about Church teachings. He directed us towards timeless Tradition and Truth and in doing so filled the spiritual chasm that had been an irritant since adolescence. I cannot be the only person who has felt this.

In real terms this affected our family. Over time we gravitated towards traditional devotions, such as a nightly Rosary and saying the Angelus at noon, and later the traditional Latin Mass. We later moved house so that we could be attached to a parish with a priest who supported us in our decision to home educate our children and who offered our family a parish with a rich and nourishing spiritual life. As a family we became attached to traditional spiritual devotions, and became immersed in a broader and richer spiritual life than we had access to in the pre-moto-proprio days. Certainly these aspects of Catholicism existed before the pontificate of Benedict XVI, but his encouragement certainly served as a catalyst for our family.

I feel immensely grateful that our family has been privileged to pray with the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, at the beatification Mass of Blessed John Henry Newman at the Mass in Birmingham as well as having prayed the Angelus with him when we went to Rome in November 2012 in thanksgiving for the 5th Anniversary of the Moto Proprio for the Una Cum Papa Nostro pilgrimage.

Do you remember where you were on 19th April 2005?  I do. I was in my dining room, close to the kitchen door, and I heard BBC Radio 4 announce the outcome of the conclave. I remember punching the air. It felt so very important at the time, and I don't think I realised how important it actually was until much much later on.

I will never forget where I was sometime after 10:30 am GMT on 11 February 2013: I was in a rented guest room above a pub on the moors in Lancashire. There was no mobile or internet reception. I had turned on the  TV news utterly randomly.

There has been much talk of the JPII generation. I consider myself to be of the BXVI generation: sure, I was born in the late'60s but I came "of age" spiritually under the guidance of our current Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. And for this reason I will forever be in his debt.

Thank you Holy Father. Thank you. thank you, thank you. May Almighty God always bless and protect you.

A tale of two cities...

...Or how to break things if they aren't working already (in Switzerland)... or make them better before they go wrong (in France)...

"Saint Pierre des Latins", Nancy, France

On our recent visit to Switzerland we discovered that, although we were surrounded by EF Masses at [F]SSPX churches we would have to drive over an hour into another diocese to find a legitimate EF Mass I asked the priest there why there were none closer to where we were staying, particularly considering the proliferation of [F]SSPX Masses which presumably indicated a need and desire for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. The answer was depressing in its simplicity: the Bishop of the area in which we were staying has Écône in his diocese. Because of this the Bishop has declared that he will never permit the older form of the Mass to take place under his authority, despite there being at least two dozen regular EF masses by the [F]SSPX in his area.

Before you start to hyperventilate, compare and contrast this with the situation in Nancy, France where we stopped the following Sunday for Mass at the wonderful Eglise Saint-Pierre with Abbé Husson of the FSSP and where the Extraordinary Form of the Mass has been said regularly since 1991 with the blessing of the local Bishop under Pope John Paul II's motu proprio: Ecclesia Dei. After Mass I asked Abbe Husson how it came to pass that Eglise Saint Pierre had nurtured and served a community devoted to the older form of the Mass. It was a simple story, he said: after the [F]SSPX schism and excommunications, a local sedevacantist priest started saying the Latin Mass. Determined that none of his flock should stray for want of spiritual sustenance, the local Bishop not only gave a parish to the FSSP to say legitmate Latin Masses, but he gave them a jewel of a church in the city centre.

Thank God for far-sighted Bishops! 

I've just said a Hail Mary for the reader...

...who found my blog using the search terms "green + ink + secularist"

Whoever you are you made my day!

Christ the Redeemer Statue to watch over London?

In a move destined to send the National Secularist Society into paroxysms of froth-mouthed green-ink rage, the Brazilian government has proposed a plan to erect a 30 foot replica of the statue of Christ the Redeemer that overlooks Rio de Janeiro on London's Primrose Hill. The hush-hush plans, discovered and published by the local Camden New Journal, are intended to celebrate the end of the London 2012 Olympic games and promote the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Although planning permission has not yet been sought, it is believed that the statue would only be in place for the four years between the two Olympic games. It is also thought that the plans were being kept secret so that there would be a "wow factor" when the statue was unveiled at the end of the 2012 games. 

All news reports point to the "obvious" controversial nature of the statue, and to the requisite foaming at the mouth by the NSS who have already helpfully supplied outraged comments. I'm rather perplexed as to why it is so very controversial to put a statue of Our Lord up in a country in which the culture, law, architecture, language and education system are all the direct inheritance of Christian civilisation. Presumably even the National Secularist Society cannot deny the Christian foundation of our Western European civilisation. I imagine that the Brazilian government will be bemused by the extreme reactions.

I'm hoping that the plan goes ahead - what a blessing to have a statue of Our Lord looking over the "Epicentre of the Culture of Death".  Surely some lasting good would come from four years of London being reminded of the saving presence of the risen Christ. 

And there would always be the question of where the statue would live afterwards. Hmmmm, that fourth plinth on Trafalgar square still doesn't have a permanent statue...