"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.

 

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!

 

Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Please join me in praying for the repose of the soul of Seamus Heaney. I spent much of my pre-children life studying 20th C Irish writing and his work was central to my PhD research. I was fortunate to have met him on numerous occasions, some formal, others less so. I will fondly remember drinking Guinness with him in a small dark Belfast pub after an impromptu reading he gave to a small group of post-graduate students. He was not an overtly religious man, and had expressed an uneasy agnosticism over the years, but his poetry often articulated an innate sense of the divine in our lives and the nuances of the Catholicism that was indelibly imprinted upon the Ireland of his youth. He came from a humble family, the eldest of 9 children but despite being a famous poet by the time I met him in the early 1990s he was modest in his demeanour and generous with his time: truly one of nature's gentlemen. I pray that he will experience the joy of the beatific vision before long.

Réquiem ætérnam dona ei Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Biretta

Like Gaul, the biretta was divided 

Into three parts: triple-finned black serge, 

A shipshape pillbox, its every slope and edge 

Trimly articulated and decided. 

Its insides were crimped satin; it was heavy too 

But sported a light flossy tassel 

That the backs of my fingers remember well, 

And it left a dark red line on the priest's brow. 

I received it into my hand from the hand 

Of whoever was celebrant, one thin 

Fastidious movement up and out and in 

In the name of the Father and of the Son AND 

Of the Holy Ghost... I placed it on the steps 

Where it seemed to batten down, even half-resist 

All the brisk proceedings of the Mass - 

The chalice drunk off and the patted lips. 

The first time I saw one, I heard a shout 

As an El Greco ascetic rose before me 

Preaching hellfire, Saurian and stormy, 

Adze-head on the rampage in the pulpit. 

Sanctuaries. Marble. Kneeling boards. Vocation. 

Some made it looked squashed, some clean and tall. 

It was as antique as armour in a hall 

And put the wind up me and my generation. 

Now I turn it upside down and it is a boat - 

A paper boat, or the one that wafts into 

The first lines of the Purgatorio 

As poetry lifts its eyes and clears its throat. 

Or maybe that small boat out of the bronze age 

Where the oars are needles and the worked gold frail 

As the intact half of a hatched-out shell, 

Refined beyond the dross into sheer image. 

But in the end it's as likely to be the one 

In Matthew Lawless's painting, The Sick Call, 

Where the scene is out on a river and it's all 

Solid, pathetic and Irish Victorian. 

In which case, however, his reverence wears a hat. 

Undaunting, half domestic, loved in crises, 

He sits listening as each long oar dips and rises, 

Sad for his worthy life and fit for it.

Seamus Heaney (13 April 1939 - 30 August 2013)

Matthew Lawless, "The Sick Call", National Gallery of Ireland

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mid-Term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney (13 April 1939 - 30 August 2013)

We say 'napkin' dear...

Oh my! Bad parenting alert: this morning my eldest daughter (9) told me with some surprise that she had just discovered that 'serviette' was not the correct, official, or tactful way to refer to female altar servers.

...just not on the sanctuary please.

As my children have been taught to use the correct term for the item of table linen used for discreet ablutions (i.e. 'napkin' *) the only context in which they'd heard the word "serviette" was in conjunction with female altar servers (of which, without any guidance from me, they disapprove ; a conclusion they reached independently in our previous N.O. parish where twirling dervishes populated the sanctuary, tossing ponytails and waving at parents. No I'm not exaggerating. In fairness they also disapprove of baseball caps and mobile phones: they're funny that way, my children).

I confirmed that serviette is not the correct liturgical term for female servers, but is a non-U term for napkin.

photo credit: Adoremus in Aeternum

*for my stateside readers: saying 'serviette' in polite company in England is tantamount to nose picking, eating peas off a knife, or saying "toilet" (it's lavatory, darling).

 

 

Wow. Just, wow.

“For in His Hand are all the ends of the earth: and the heights of the mountains are His.” ~ Psalm 94:4

Father Antony Sumich, FSSP, offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the base of Mount Assiniboine on the British Columbia-Alberta border.

(credit: FSSP.com "Image of the day" 19 August 2013)

We had the privilege of getting to know Fr Sumich during the three weeks we spent in Alberta earlier this year, and we were struck by his robust holiness and masculine witness to the faith. He is a superb role model for young men, and leads a wilderness pilgrimage / camping trip for older teenage boys and their fathers during the summer: I'm assuming that this photograph was taken on this trip. My husband and eldest son were captivated by the idea of a rigorous expedition with a spiritual dimension and have both insisted that we make sure that one of our future visits coincides with one of Fr Sumich's camping trips -- as soon as our son is old enough, that is! 

Two of my fondest recollections from our family's trip to Canada this year are the wonderful traditional Mass community at St Anthony's Church in Calgary, ably led by Fr Sumich; and the (literally) awesome scenery, particularly in the more remote mountain areas. This photograph brings both together and looking at it made me feel very very happy. Here, if only for a few moments, is a corner of the world where all is as it should be. Deo gratias.

Happy Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

"We must aim for the abolition of the family..."

 

You know that things have come to a pretty pass when the uber-liberal Huffington Post carries an article warning of an organised campaign to destroy the family; a campaign orchestrated by the homosexual lobby, and openly supported by leading political figures - including the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London.

 

"Peter Tatchell writing for the Guardian this week, talks of "how the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto helped to shape me." You may not have heard of this document before, but you should read it because it sets out - in no uncertain terms - the path our society has taken over the last few decades, and gives a clear picture of where the path is heading. The document says: "We must aim at the abolition of the family".

The manifesto was published in 1971 and then revised in 1978. As Peter says himself, it was written by "anarchists, hippies, leftwingers, feminists, liberals and counter-culturalists". I doubt that David Cameron has ever read it, but whether he knows it or not, he has allowed himself to be influenced by its central agenda. In an attempt to suck up to his liberal metropolitan chums, he has bought into it.

I first came across the manifesto when I saw a photo of the Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, marching under a banner celebrating 40 years since the formation of the now-defunct Gay Liberation Front. It struck me as unusual to see a Conservative politician marching for any radical group whose name ended with the words "...Liberation Front". It sparked my curiosity, and that's when I came across the manifesto."

 

...and it gets ever more sinister. Read the whole article here...

 

Then pray for our families, our children and our priests - the well being of whom is all interconnected.