Relics of the St Francis Xavier

At the Gesu today, to mark his feastday, the arm of St Francis Xavier was exposed for veneration: from our Rome correspondent.

I occassionally tell my parishioners it is their duty to supply our Church with relics, preferrably by becoming saints themselves.

Southern Water: are they really some kind of scam?

Anyone else had problems?

I know they were "done" a few years for make false claims on people.

I have wasted a extraordinary amount of time trying to get sense out Southern Water. They apparently don't charge anything for my house, they should but they actually seem to be too daft to send out a bill, they used to but got the wrong address and have now stopped.

However they sent us bill for £4,500 for our Community Centre, now we don't actually have a swimming pool just lavatories (US bathrooms) male and female upstairs and downstairs (no baths though) and a single sink, no way could we use that amount of water. Our plumber made a check for leaks, we have none which as the building was gutted seven years ago and all the plumbing renewed would have been unlikely.

Apart from getting postcodes on the bill wrong and the street a bit wrong, they still insist we have £4,500 to pay. All this has been going since April. We can't afford to pay it.

If you have an account with "Southern Water" cancel your bankers order, get them to check your meter it is most probable either faulty or they are charging you for other peoples water.

It looks as though we are going to have to close the Community Centre over Christmas, because we can't afford the water, that is going to result in people in real need not having anywhere to meet, including the refugees who are fed from the Centre. A good story for the press.

Does anyone have the addresses of any of "Southern Waters" directors? The answer is obviously to drop round and discuss the matter with them, I might take one of my parishioners, "Wee Joe" to play carols on his highland pipes with me. An even better story for the press!

Pro-abortionist lectures at the Angelicum

Pontifical University of St Thomas, otherwise known as the Angelicum, one of the Church's leading universities has invited Cherie Blair to speak at a conference. English Catholics are quite aware of the Blair's pro-abortion views, it seems the authorities at the Angelicum aren't.

Maybe they haven't read about her "contraceptive equipment" in her autobiography, or more worrying maybe they have.

Where is Apollinarius and Hillaritas?

Of course all the children I baptise have proper Christian names (if only) but priest friends have had girls named Sky, "Skyblue", Baby, Kylie, Amber, Jade, even a "Love Child", as well as a whole lot of cities, or London boroughs, Chelsea is preferred to Whapping and Richmond to Clapham. I did have parents ages ago who had named there son Thor, I felt if I refused to baptise him with that name and they complained to the bishop he would cite Apollinarius or Apollos, in 1 Corinthians, but I suppose I would draw the line at Blood Axe or Raging Bull, which might be less cruel than Hillaritas, calling your son Hyacinth could cause him to be taken into care of course, he would certainly grow to hate you, wouldn't he?

"Christian names" I suppose is yet another thing I should add to the vast list, several volumes in fact, of things I should catechise about.

CMR An Italian bishop has called on parents to stop giving their children "ridiculous" names and revert to traditional Christian names instead.

Monsignor Bassano Staffieri, retired bishop of La Spezia in Liguria, said that of the 500 girls born in the city this year, "not one was registered or baptised with the name Maria". He added."A name is not just a sound, it has a profound meaning."

Mothers and fathers "should return to using a name like Maria, which is inspired by the Virgin Mary", instead of opting for "exotic or strange names of which their children will later be ashamed", the bishop said. There were signs that parents were reverting to traditional names for boys, "but this is still not the case with baby girls, alas". (underlining mine)

He said the reason was not so much that Italian families were abandoning the Catholic faith but rather that they did not give enough thought to baptismal names. "The problem is they do not think about what they are doing".

They longed to see what you see

Lk 10:21-24

Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said,
“I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows who the Son is except the Father,
and who the Father is except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

Turning to the disciples in private he said,
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
For I say to you,
many prophets and kings longed to see what you see,
but did not see it,
and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

View from my Guest Room

If you stand on a chair in my guest room you see the end of the now derelict West Pier, a huge flock of starlings roost there.
I found this video on Laurence's blog.

The Rising Sun

Advent is the season of reorientation, of metonoia, it is when the Benedictus, Zechariah' Canticle, said every day in the Divine Office comes to the fore.

How exactly would you translate oriens which roughly means: rising, the rising sun, east, morning?

1985 editio typica altera of Liturgia Horarum):

Ad dandam scientiam salutis plebi eius: in remissionem peccatorum eorum:
Per viscera misericordiæ Dei nostri: in quibus visitabit nos oriens ex alto:
Illuminare his qui in tenebris et in umbra mortis sedent: ad dirigendos pedes nostros in viam pacis.

From The Divine Office (1974, Grail translation):

To make known to his people their salvation
through forgiveness of all their sins,
the loving-kindness of the heart of our God
who visits us like the dawn from on high.
He will give light to those who dwell in darkness,
those who dwell in the shadow of death,
and guide us into the way of peace.

From the Douay-Rheims Bible (1582):

To give knowledge of salvation to His people, unto the remission of their sins:
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us: To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death: to direct our feet into the way of peace.