We are going to have Benediction in the Extraordinary Form, hence the additional candles.
Mass will be offered ad orientem later.
Cardinal Bertone has been speaking about the Pope's next encyclical.
What he said:
A new social encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI will probably be entitled Caritas in Veritate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has revealed.
In an interview with the APCOM news agency, the Vatican Secretary of State disclosed that the Pope's next encyclical will not be ready for publication before the fall. "The encyclical is still being written," he said.
Cardinal Bertone said that Pope Benedict is also working on the second part of his book Jesus of Nazareth. The Pope typically devotes a substantial portion of his summer vacation to writing projects.
In his encyclical, the cardinal said, Pope Benedict "does not want to repeat obvious truths of Catholic social teaching," but will apply Church teachings to contemporary problems. "I am thinking of globalization and other problems, like the food crisis and climate change," Cardinal Bertone said.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA
21st May 2008
Your Majesty,
For the defence of your most vulnerable subjects, for the future of the Realm, can I beg Your Majesty not to give Royal Assent to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.
By legalising animal-human hybrids, the Bill disregards the distinction between man and other animals. In this it denies our immortal soul.
By legalising the creation of saviour siblings, the Bill proclaims that man and science can deliver us from suffering even by violating fundamental ethical norms such as no person is to be used (or created) as a means to somebody else's end.
By allowing the creation of fatherless children the Bill enshrines an extreme rejection of the Father. Fatherhood is intrinsic to life, encoded in the deepest reality not only of creation but first of the uncreated Trinity.
By resisting all attempts to lower the upper limit for abortions from 24 weeks the Bill proves itself to be against God's own gift to us: life itself.
Your Majesty is the only person in the world with the temporal power to prevent this Bill from becoming an Act. Please help us.
Fr Aidan Nichols, OP, wrote of your Coronation: "Taking the orb, surmounted by the cross, [the Queen] was reminded that "the whole world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our Redeemer;The sceptre, the supreme symbol of royal power, the ensign of kingly power and justice, was handed over simultaneously with the dove-headed rod, as a sign that justice and mercy are never to be put asunder.""
In this Fr Nichols gives your subjects tremendous hope that whenever Parliament fails grievously, our monarch may protect us from evil. Please defend us.
Yours most sincerely,
James Mawdsley and The Undersigned
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/eccematertua/
Fr. Z says, "Save the Liturgy, Save the World." An overstatement by a zealous liturgy lover? Perhaps, but on the other hand, ask yourself why there is so little sense of the sacred in our lives.
Why do young people not respect their elders? Why the disintegrating social manners? Why the foul language, the commonplace crudeness? Why the lack of courtesy? Why do we not take time for nice family meals? Why the crassness and vulgarity of modern society when we have enough money to make things nice? Why the lack of self respect? Why the casual, cheap and horrible clothing we wear? Why the sloppy attitudes, sloppy language, sloppy everything?
I reckon it comes down to a lack of the sacred. If you do not believe anything is sacred, then nothing is sacred. If you do not believe there is anything to bow down to, then you never bow down. If there is nothing to worship, then there is nothing much at all. When nothing is sacred all things are equal in value. The lack of the sacred is a great and monstrous leveler.
One of the things we notice at St Mary's Greenville, (where we have made the attempt to bring back the sacred) is that the people dress up more to come to church. They also behave better in church. I reckon it filters down to the rest of life as well. Perhaps by re-sacralizing the sacred we also re-sacralize the rest of life.
Maybe, just maybe, when we bring back the sacred to our worship, all things sacred become more sacred. If we truly worship in church, should we not then value our family meals more? If we take the trouble and care over the liturgy should we not take more trouble and care over our manners, our dress, our relationships and our language?
Worship should transform our perspective on life, so all things beautiful, precious and eternal are valued in a way that is beautiful, precious and eternal.
Bring on the incense. Bring on the beautiful vestments, Sing choirs of angels, roll in the trumpets and drums. Train the noble young men to serve at the altar as if they were servants in the halls of the Great King. Help the noble young women to sing the praises of the king with fine music. Preach the word with passion and beauty. Value the liturgy and take time to worship and see if your world is not renewed.
found on Creative Minority Report
Fr Robert Barron on the Pope's understanding of teaching on reason. Fr Barron addresses directly the North American experience but in can be easily extrapulated to our own.
More of Fr Barron's videos can be found in the Menu.
An Oxbridge chaplain’s classic answer to such, repeated recently on the Ship and worth repeating here
Tell us about this god you don’t believe in, because it is likely that we don’t believe in that one either. But we DO believe in something that may make sense to you too.
"... modern mosaic schemes are often frightful, like something out of Walt Disney."I suspect he was referring to the latest image of the Holy Family, which seems to be attempt at a sentimentalised family portrait rather than a theological statement.
Its vast eschatological sweep is emphasised by a pattern of colour that proceeds from green and blue through to red and finally, at the consummation of the world, to gold. Alongside pagans such as Plato, Lucretius and Zoroaster, the design also includes a representation of Buddha.
from the Italian Panorama.
Farewell to big time Masses – The Pope to place limit celebrationsNo more big "show" Masses: The Pope want to put the brakes on huge concelebrations with hundreds of priests, often far from the altar, as we are now used to in the World Youth Days and papal journeys. Benedict XVI has entrusted to the Congregation for Divine Worship the task of preparing, if necessary, an "instruction".Concelebrations will be limited to precise circumstances with a reduced number of priests around the altar. The Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium fixed the cases in which it was permitted to concelebrate. "It is necessary to return to the original meaning of concelebration, which is the sign of unity of priests", explained Msgr. Nichola Bux, a professor at the Theological Faculty of Puglia.
"They just want to dumb down the liturgy. If you can get them, archlutenists and sackbutt players, to say nothing of soloists, are on double pay, it is impossible on a Sunday."
So said a priest of a certain London parish to me recently. He was moaning about, yes, I am sorry to go on about it again, the movement of Holy Days to Sundays.
We could never afford to put on a Baroque Mass, with original instruments but moving Corpus Christi to Sundays mean that it becomes impossible to have continuous Exposition, which was something I had been building up over the years, having a procession on after our main Sunday Mass is impossible unless we cancel the Polish Mass, and they wouldn't like that.
The problem in practice is that moving these great feasts to Sunday, is far from, "giving them a greater prominence" is that they just get lost, different vestments, different hymns, maybe. Partying is a bit difficult too.
At our cathedral in Arundel, the Apostolic Nuncio and our bishop will celebrate a votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist followed by a procession. The pictures are of last years.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I was asked to publicise this:
Next Tuesday (20 May) some MPs plan to table amendments to the HFE Bill aimed at introducing abortion on demand and extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.
It is vital that these amendments are defeated. The evidence suggests that the easier it is to obtain an abortion, the more abortions there are. Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of the BPAS (the largest provider of abortions in the UK) admits this, calling UK abortion law “one of the most liberal in the way it is interpreted”, adding “although the Act does not formally permit abortion ‘on request’ that is what it has allowed in practice.”
England and Wales have some of the highest abortion rates in the EU and there is widespread agreement that these figures are too high. Survey after survey shows that most British people believe that there are too many abortions and that abortions are too easy to obtain.
1. There is strong opposition to abortion in Northern Ireland. Pro-choice activists know their only hope is for MPs in Westminster to impose legal abortion in Northern Ireland against the wishes of the electorate. The people of Northern Ireland should determine their own laws on abortion. It would be undemocratic for Westminster to impose its model of permissive abortion on the Province.Please email your MPs asking them to resist both of these amendments. If you do not know who your local MP is or how to contact him/her, feel follow the link below which will allow you to email them directly: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
2. Currently an abortion requires the approval of two doctors. This imposes at least a minimum of time for reflection before the decision to abort. Next week’s amendment will take away even that. The requirement should be for even more time for reflection not less.
When the Blairs moved into Downing Street, a feng shui expert rearranged the furniture at Number 10. Cherie wears a 'magic pendant' known as the BioElectric Shield, which is filled with 'a matrix of specially cut quartz crystals' that surround the wearer with 'a cocoon of energy' and ward off evil forces. (It was given to her by Hillary Clinton, another political spouse who combines the characteristic Third Way vices of sharp practice and bone-headedness). Then there have been inflatable Flowtron trousers, auricular therapy and acupuncture pins in the ear.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.
The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.
Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
But he said he continues to believe that "God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the result of chance."
Everyone knows the story of Pope Paul VI going into the sacristy on the Monday after Pentecost and seeing green vestments laid out for him, "Where is the red for the Octave of Pentecost? he asked. "But Holy Father you abolished it." Apparently the burst into tears.
I personally would like the restoration of the Octave.
In the Orthodox world green is the colour of Pentecost, though they are less regularity about liurgical colours, churches are filled with foliage, and occassionally green hangings.
Green signifies fecundity. Thus green time, now known as Ordinary Time, used to be known as the Time after Pentecost. It was the time when the Holy Spirit was gently at work sanctifying, healing,slowly building up the Church. This is really the season of Pentecost, we look for the fantastic or miraculous but actually the Holy Spirit in most people's lives is the silent power of sanctification, causing the branches of the Holy Vine to grow, flower and fruit.
Grant, O Lord, that I may bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, so that I may receive the reward for my labours with rejoicing
Daniel Macarty an Irish man being Indicted upon the Statute of 27 Eliz. for having taken Order from the See of Rome, and coming over into England being Impeached by one Alice Turner who had formerly been his proselyte. And upon Information one Mr. Stiff a Constable in St. Giles's taking with him some other Neighbours, went to Apprehend him, and having entred the House where he was said to lodg, They found him Confessing a Sick Woman, who no sooner seeing them begin roughly to handle her Priest but cryed out, O what will you rob me of my Salvation.
That unnamed woman deserves admiration, even four centuries after the fact.
At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...