Malicious Comments

I have had a few malicious comments lately, all from the same "anonymous". I have recorded and am quite willing to publish "anonymous'" IP address, ISP, location and details of their computer if wretched, cowardly, poisonous "anonymous" persists in visiting this blog.
I understand it is not too difficult to identify who is the actual source of these comments with a bit of not too clever technology.

CORPUS CHRISTI IN TOLEDO

His Absolute Generosity, Absolute Intimacy

Had God created the world and placed man in it, it would have been enough!
Had He revealed himself to us, it would have been enough!
Had He given us his Law, it would have been enough!
Had He given us the Prophets, it would have been enough!
Had He given us His only Son through the womb of the Virgin and shared our human nature, it would have been enough!
Had He proclaimed the Gospel and worked miracles in Israel, so that mankind could see God face to face, it would have been enough!
Had He suffered and died for us, taking on human mortality, it would have been enough!
Had He risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, so that mortal nature might share immortal Glory, it would have been enough!
Had He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit, to sanctify us and share His Divine Nature with us, it would have been enough!

But He loves and He gives us His Body and Blood, He desires us to be part of His Body the Church, and to be with us always. Constantly He desires to give us his good gifts, because it is His nature to pour out His own self for us. Our God is absolute generosity and absolute intimacy.

Pope and Communion Abuse

Again on the Feast of Corpus Christi the Holy Father gave Holy Communion to the faithful only kneeling and only on the tongue. In what has become the normal practice, the faithful form a queue and kneel on a prie-Dieu, whilst the Master of Ceremonies places a communion plate under the communicants chin.
Unfortunately this way of distributing Holy Communion only appertains to the Pope, other priests and bishops at Papal Masses distribute Holy Communion to standing communicants who may receive either on the tongue or in the hand. This manner of distributing Holy Communion, therefore, seems to be more about the Pope than the Lord, a security measure rather than a matter of reverence. There are stories of people keeping the Sacred Hosts distributed by Pope John Paul as souvenirs.
At Papal Masses it seems that even the instructions of Redemptionis Sacramentum are not followed for most communicants:

[93.] The Communion-plate for the Communion of the faithful should be retained, so as to avoid the danger of the sacred host or some fragment of it falling.

We use a communion plate here, though following the norms set for the reception of Holy Communion by our bishops: the faithful receive Holy Communion standing and are liberty to receive Holy Communion either on the tongue or in the hand.
I don't know if it is peculiar to Brighton but at least once a month we have a "Eucharitic incident", as a result of receiving Holy Communion in the hand. The last one, a man received Holy Communion and simply walked off with the host in his hand, I followed him to the Church door, still carrying the ciborium and demanded the Body of the Christ back. The night before a woman who I hadn't seen before was acting strangely, she had been sitting in the front row, she and her husband ignored any sign of reverence throughout the Mass at Holy Communion she walked off with Host, quietly I asked her to consume it, after Mass she and the man she was with became quite abusive. I have also had the occasional penitent who had retained the Body of Christ to receive it after absolution.
I would prefer everyone to receive on the tongue and kneeling but obviously one can't deny people a right which is accorded them by the bishops and the Church. What I have noticed is that in the Usus Antiquor the distribution of Holy Communion is actually much quicker, partly because the celebrant does not have to wait for the communicant to receive the host before they move away, it is also much less stressful for the celebrant.

Corpus Christi at SMM

A few Photographs of Corpus Christi last night.

I am getting old it was the first time I did subdeacon. I couldn't genuflect as fast as Fr Sean or Dr Reid, and my hand began to twitch a bit holding the paten.

... and we ended up talking until past two in the morning - yawn -yawn -yawn.

I was very impressed by the music, thank you Clare and Jane and choirs.

Andrew our MC was marvellous with the servers, some of them had never served Mass before, let alone the TLM. The only problem was the subdeacon, he kept standing the wrong place. Is there "Subdeaconing for Dummies"?

It was interesting on the few occassions I glimpsed the congregation to see the number of students, but more significantly, members of the University faculty in the congregation.

By the way yesterday was the eve of Fr Sean Finnegan's birthday.

I notice Fr Tim thinks he had more candles and servers, so? I bet we had more Doctorates amongst the servers! Not that either of us are into rivalry, merely giving glory to God. Though we got our photographs up first!

TONIGHT

SOLEMN HIGH MASS of Corpus Christi in the Extraordinary Form,

here at 7.30pm

Music: Byrd's Mass for Four Voices

Abp Bruguès' Address to Seminary Rectors

Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès, is the former bishop of Angers. He is Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which oversees Seminary formation, as well as being Vice President of the Pontifical Work for Ecclesiastical Vocations and a member of The Commission for the Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood.

In a speech to the Rectors of Pontifical Seminaries addressed many of the issues that seem to concern me, and I presume readers of this blog. It certainly addresses issues that cause serious concern to some of Roman seminarians, especially in those seminaries whose staff cling to the beige culture of 1970s. It also has implications for parish life.

.... in fact, we have experienced or even fostered an extremely powerful self-secularization in most of the Western Churches.

The examples are many. Believers are ready to exert themselves in the service of peace, justice, and humanitarian causes, but do they believe in eternal life? Our Churches have carried out an immense effort to renew catechesis, but does not this catechesis itself tend to overlook the ultimate realities? For the most part, our Churches have embarked upon the ethical debates of the moment, at the urging of public opinion, but how much do they talk about sin, grace, and the divinized life? Our Churches have successfully deployed massive resources in order to improve the participation of the faithful in the liturgy, but has not the liturgy for the most part lost the sense of the sacred? Can anyone deny that our generation, possibly without realizing it, dreamed of a "Church of the pure," a faith purified of any religious manifestation, warning against any manifestation of popular devotion like processions, pilgrimages, etc.?

He speaks of the need for depth rather breadth of formation. The importance of formation in the doctrines of the Church. He ends by speaking of the divide between the older generation of priests and those who are now being formed.

The first leads us to observe that secularization includes values with a strong Christian influence, like equality, freedom, solidarity, responsibility, and that it should be possible to come to terms with this current and identify areas of cooperation.

The second current, on the contrary, calls for keeping distance. It maintains that the differences or points of opposition, above all in the field of ethics, will become increasingly pronounced. It therefore proposes an alternative to the dominant model, and accepts the minority opposition role.

.....

How can harmony be fostered between educators, who often belong to the first current, and the young people who identify with the second? Will the educators continue to cling to criteria of admission and selection that date back to their own time, but no longer correspond to the aspirations of the young? I was told the story of a French seminary in which adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament had been banned for a good twenty years or so, because it was seen as too devotional: the new seminarians had to struggle for a number of years to have it reinstated, while some of the professors preferred to resign in the face of something that they judged as a "return to the past"; by giving in to the requests of the younger men, they had the impression that they were renouncing what they had fought for their entire lives.