Merry Christmas --- and 25 December is the Right Day . . .

. . . and it looks like the Roman Empire's census records agree.

The FSSP's current newsletter "Memento" has a fascinating article on just that subject. The citation is going to be a little  wordier than usual.

Start here at the FSSP website's Memento link.  Then click on the image of the Memento at the top of the page.  [If you're coming at this  after a couple of months, it will be further down the  page among the back issues.  Hover the cursor over the images and it's the one that says "Christmas (Jan 2025")]  Page forward and it's the article entitled "The Holy Family in the Roman Census".

It's well-worth the search.  Could the Roman census have contained St Joseph's entry in his own handwriting?

12th Night -- The Epiphany of the Lord

 

Today is the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, Epiphania Domini, 12th Night, Three Kings Day, Little Christmas, Women's Christmas, Wedding Feast at Cana Day, and possibly even the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord in the Jordan.  Although that last  one does have it's very own feast day on the 13th of the month in the traditional calendar and some other day, which I've forgotten,  in the bright, shiny, new, up-to-date, aggiornamentoed Bugnini calendar.  And I can't swear that I haven't forgotten a name or two.

The Inn has posted the Blessed Cardinal Schuster's discussion of the Epiphany more than once.  Another citation for 2025 will do no harm.  It's well-worth a review.  You can find it, among other places, here.

Small, But Welcome, Rays of Sunshine . . . .

. . . .when you open the large envelope from the insurance company and at the top in large, friendly letters it says "THIS IS NOT A BILL". 

New Year's Eve in the Ireland of Long Ago

 A post from The Inn's archives.  This one from over 20 years ago, quoting Kevin Danaher’s delightful “The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs”.  As the title  says, Danaher covers Irish customs throughout the year.  These few paragraphs cover new year traditions.

“New Year’s Eve and Day 31 December – 1 January never seem to have been major festivals in Ireland. The first of January was not counted as New Year’s Day until so designated by law in the new calendar of 1751, little over two centuries ago. Up to that time the legal year began in Ireland, as in England, on 25 March, while the country people still reckoned their working year as beginning on the first day of spring, 1 February.

“In Scotland, however, where Roman custom had long prevailed, 1 January traditionally began the year and thus was of much importance in popular celebration; a Scottish origin for some of the custom associated with the day in Ireland might thus be sought.

“Divination of the future was common on New Year’s Eve, especially, the forecasting of weather conditions for the whole of the coming year. Wind, sun, rain, snow, floods and all local weather signs were read and interpreted. Such omens often indicated much more than mere weather. In west County Kerry for instance, the direction of the wind indicated the trend of politics in the coming year; if it blew from the West the Irish cause would flourish, while an east wind foretold that the English interest would prevail.

“Indeed, almost anything which happened on New Year’s Eve and Day might be ominous of the future, and the nearer to the midnight hour when the year actually began, the more significant. A very popular belief held that the first person or creature to enter the house after midnight should be black or black-haired and also male to be lucky. To ensure their luck, many households sent out a suitably endowed member or friend before midnight to perform this office of lucky ‘first footing’ immediately after midnight. Others trusted to chance for their lucky first footing and were happy when their first visitor was a black cat or a dark haired boy. And since the latter was sure to be given a little present, small boys took advantage of the custom to get sweets or money at the neighbours’ houses.

“On New Year’s Eve, girls put holly and ivy leaves, or a sprig of mistletoe under their pillows to bring dreams of their future husbands. One of the charms said was:

“‘Oh, ivy green and holly red
Tell me, whom I shall wed’

“New Year’s Eve was known as Oiche na Coda Móire (the night of the big portion) because of the belief that eating a very large supper on that night ensured food in plenty for the coming year. A further ceremony to banish hunger and ensure plenty was fairly widespread. Crofton Croker (Researches in the South of Ireland, 233) describes it thus, while casting doubt on its efficacy:

“‘On the last night of the year, a cake is thrown against the outside door of each house by the head of the family, which ceremony is said to keep out hunger during the ensuing one; and the many thousand practical illustrations of the fallacy of this artifice have not yet succeeded in producing conviction of the same.’

“Nicholas O’Kearney, some twenty years later, sees evidence of heathenish practice in it (Trans. Kilkenny Archaeological Society: 1849-51, 146-7):

“‘There is one custom which I found practiced by a family moving in a very respectable sphere, and which I am informed was not long ago, probably still is, practiced in the County of Kilkenny, and to which I wish to call your attention, because it appears to me to savour of Paganism of the rankest kind. On the eve of the Twelfth day a large loaf called the “Christmas Loaf” which is usually baked some days previously, is laid with great solemnity on the table; the doors and windows are closed and strongly bolted; and the one of the family generally the housewife, then takes the loaf, and pounding it against the closed doors, etc. repeats three times, in Irish the following Rann:

“Fógramuid an Ghorta,
Amach go tír na d-Turcach;
O nocht go bliadhain ó nocht,
Agus ó nocht féin amach.

“(We warn famine to retire
To the country of the Turks;
From this night to this night twelvemonth,
And even this very night.)

“In County Kildare, ‘Omurethi’ is content to record the custom without comment (Kildare Archaeological Journal, v, 440-1):

“‘It was customary on the New Year’s Eve to bake a large barmbrack, which the man of the house, after taking three bites out of it dashed against the principal door of his dwelling, in the name of the Trinity at the same expressing the hope that starvation might be banished from Ireland and go to the King of the Turks. The fragments of the cake were then gathered up and eaten by all the members of the household.’

“In west County Limerick the ceremony was similar; the cake was rapped upon the door with the words:

“An donas amach
A’s an sonas isteach
O’ anocht go dtí bliain ó anocht
In ainm an Athar a’s an Mhic, a’s an Spirid Naoimh, Amen.

“(Happiness in and misfortune out
from this night
Until a year from to-night.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.)

“Many farmers repeated the ceremony at the door of the byre, to ensure plentiful fodder for the cows.

“In some households the cake was tossed out through the doorway, to be caught by a person stationed outside. The invocation of the Trinity was usual in this as in so many other customs, which, incidentally leads to speculation as to the degree of deafness of the smeller-out of heathenism quoted above.

“People tried to ensure that no food was taken away from the house on New Year’s Eve, and even shameless beggars hesitated to ask for ‘loan’ of foodstuffs, and not entirely because of the fear of the householder’s resentment.

“From Rathlin Island, County Antrim comes word of a traditional ceremony which appears to be purely Scottish. A party of young men went about from house to house collecting oatmeal and money to help poor widows and other needy persons in the community. The leader wore a sheepskin tied about his neck and hanging down behind. On coming into the house he took a glowing turf sod from the fire and laid in the middle of the floor, and he and his men marched around this, reciting an Irish verse while the second man in the line held up the end of the sheepskin and beat upon it with a stick. One man carried a bag to hold the gifts of meal, on receipt of which the leader cut a lock of wool from his sheepskin and having singed it over the red coal presented it to each member of the household to smell. The party then left for the next house, announcing their progress by blowing on horns. Another northern custom was the carrying about from door to door by children of a bundle of straw from which they presented wisps to the householders who were supposed to reciprocate with little gifts of money.

“The welcoming of the New Year at midnight on 31 December by the ringing of church bells, band parades, fireworks, bonfires and general well-wishing has, over the past century or so, spread in Ireland form the larger to the smaller towns and villages, where it is usually now observed in this fashion.

“When passing a graveyard on New Year’s Eve or Day a prayer should be said for all those who died during the year.”

This is a wonderful book.  Not sure if it's still in print but if you can find a copy it will repay your investment many times over in pure delight. 

ADDENDUM:  Well, a little internet digging reveals that it is still in print.  Sort of.  The American co-publisher, Irish Books and Media, seems to have gone the way of all flesh.  But the Irish publisher, Mercier Press of Cork, is very much still a going concern and The Year in Ireland can still be ordered from them.  Here, in fact.  But in the interest of avoiding a terminological inexactitude, it's worth mentioning that saying it's "in print"  is perhaps not quite the proper description:  it has print-on-demand status.  So if you order a copy, it will be in print.  If you don't, well . . . .

The Ash Grove - Melodeon

A favourite tune on a lovely old Hohner melodeon, button clicks and all.

Yule Vacance -- a.k.a., Christmas Holiday

 The following is  swiped from Robb Quint's always informative daily email, mostly about Scottish Country Dance happenings in southern California, but also with a fair bit of history, stories, folklore, and what-have-you about Scotland in general.  This is from the Christmas mail:

Christmas in Dundee...and elsewhere in Scotland...

is about the same as anywhere else in the West, some

folks celebrating it religiously, others as a secular and

seasonal holiday only, and some not at all, but a bank

holiday for all. It was not always like that.  Scotland's

iteration of the Protestant Reformation made religion a

serious business and not to be mixed with any celebratory

frivolity.  The following is part of the 1640 "Estates"

(Parliament) Yule Vacance (holiday) Act.  It is in Middle

Scots but still easy enough to read and understand:

 

The kirke within this kingdome is now purged of all superstitious

observatione of dayes...thairfor the saidis estatis have dischairged and

simply dischairges the foirsaid Yule vacance and all observation thairof in

tymecomeing, and rescindis and annullis all acts, statutis and warrandis and

ordinances whatsoevir granted at any tyme heirtofoir for keiping of the said

Yule vacance, with all custome of observatione thairof, and findis and declaires

the samene to be extinct, voyd and of no force nor effect in tymecomeing.

 

This act was rescinded for Scotland by the Parliament

of Great Britain in 1712, five years after the union of

England and Scotland as a single nation, but it still took

until just about 1½ centuries ago for Christmas Day to

be reïnstated in Scotland as a "bank holiday" in 1871.

(Ideally, I'd cite you to his webpage, but this came from an email list and I don't have a webpage address to cite you to. )

And it wasn't only the Scots.  Some of our colonial forefathers weren't all that pleased with Christmas joy either.

Witness:

Political Euphoria

 Having been subjected yet again to far more political television than I would prefer(1), this tweet that I saved from a few years ago keeps coming to mind.   I hope Mr Warren (2) is wrong even though I see no indication that he is.

I have noticed, everything that gets the crowds out in political euphoria, ends badly. (Not almost everything. Everything.) - David Warren

(1)  I would, of course, prefer none. So it doesn't take much for the Nameless Dread to set in.
(2) If memory serves, and it sometimes does, the poster of this thought was not Mr Warren but someone quoting him.  So I hope the OP and I are quoting him accurately.

Culture

A most important point made by Christopher Dawson  quoted in the  volume 5, number 4 edition of Anglican Embers:

"Culture, as its name denotes, is an artificial product. It is like a city 

that has been built up laboriously by the work of successive gener

ations, not a jungle which has grown up spontaneously by the blind 

pressure of natural forces. It is the essence of culture that it is com

municated and acquired, and although it is inherited by one gener

ation from another, it is a social not a biological inheritance, a tra

dition of learning, an accumulated capital of knowledge and a com

munity of ‘folkways’ into which the individual has to be initiated. 

Hence it is clear that culture is inseparable from education.”  

Christopher Dawson 

Anglican Embers  - Shared Treasures is the journal of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society.  You can find their web page here.

 

For Mattins in Christmas Day

 Christmas Invitatory.

BEHOLD a virgin shall conceive and bear a son: * and shall call his Name Immanuel.

Unto us a child is born: * unto us a son is given.

In this was manifested the love of God towards us: * because that God sent his Only Begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: * who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, * world without end. Amen.

Old Saint Knick

 As in "Knickerbocker".

A wonderful piece from Chronicles on Washington Irving and Christmas.  You can find it here.

It starts out:

According to Walter Russell Mead’s recent analysis “One way to read Trump’s second victory in three elections is that the movement for a post-American America with a successor ideology and post-Judeo Christian cultural and ethical foundation aimed at fundamentally changing American society has reached it sell-by date.”

Do not hold your breath.

The demise of “woke” has been greatly exaggerated. The unfortunate truth is that the “woke”  era under which the great mass of Americans has been harassed since the reelection of Barack Obama is merely the latest spasm of the puritanism that has periodically plagued the body politic since the English Civil War. The particular issues change, but the insufferable moralization and coercive war on preexisting cultural traditions and symbols are always recognizable.

Fortunately, wokeness does appear to be receding at the moment, the antidote having been provided by a New Yorker who “looked at things poetically rather than politically” and “revered the past and the stability that a sense of the past provides.” No, I am not referring to Donald Trump, but another knickerbocker—Washington Irving.

Born in 1783, the year of victory over the British, Irving’s life would span the entire antebellum period of American history. Fittingly named after the father of his country, Irving would go on to establish himself as the Father of American Literature. He believed that America’s puritanical impulses stunted healthy cultural development, a belief developed in rebellion against a puritanical upbringing under Irving’s strict Presbyterian father.

“I have no relish for puritans either in religion or politics, who are pushing for principles to an extreme, and overturning everything that stands in the way of their own zealous career,” wrote Irving. Instead, Irving had faith in tradition where “population, manners, and customs remained fixed.” And nowhere is Irving’s impact on American traditions greater than in how we celebrate Christmas.

Click here for the rest. 

1 December -- 1st Sunday of Advent

The liturgical journey to Bethlehem begins.   I suggest a look at Fr Z's explication of the old Vespers hymn, Cónditor alme siderum which you can find here.  And note that Father has the eminent good taste to provide John Mason Neale's translation, Creator of the stars of night.

So long as you've clicked your way over to the WDTPRS site, you could do a lot worse than spend a couple of minutes with Father's "ADVENTCAzT".

A few years ago some of the Blessed Cardinal Schuster's thoughts on Advent were posted on The Inn here.   My copy of Cardinal Schuster's Liber Sacramentorum (or should that be "copies"?  It comes in five volumes.) is one of my treasures.  It was a gift to me from my friend Carlo a few years before he died.  It's the original English edition, I believe.  If it's of interest to you,  one of the Catholic publishers has reprinted it.  I forget which but it shouldn't be too hard to find, search engines being what they are.

[ADDENDUM:   I looked it up for you.  It's the Arouca Press.  If you go to this page you can order the set.  I noticed that this reprint has a Foreword by Gregory DiPippo, which if his other work at the New Liturgical Movement site is anything to go by, should be well-worth the price of admission.]

 

November 6 -- St Illtyd

 Sometimes spelled "Illtud", he was the great Welsh monastic founder.  Not much has come down to us about his life.   The good old Catholic Encyclopedia has the basics of what is known here.

This site, apparently maintained by the Church of Wales, has something more about his foundations based on recent research.

And today is his feast day in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.  His collect:

Through the example and intercession of Saint Illtud, O Lord: grant us the grace to seek Thee in wisdom, and bring us to find Thee in prayer; through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Te Deum laudamus

 The Church's traditional chant of thanks giving.

(What do you mean "for  what?"  On this 6th day of November in the year of Our Lord 2024, I suspect you know very well "for what".)

O.K., maybe not "Prohibited by Law". The blog-owner presumeth authority but he hath it not. Still, it would be nice. Even if not "by law".

 

I can't think of any either . . . .

 

Exercizing the Franchise

 And so I did.  Indeed, we did, herself and I last Thursday.  Somewhat of a pointless exercize, this being California and all.  The Democrats have the state in their back pocket.  They don't even need to indulge in that, um, electoral slight of hand that they do elsewhere.  Although, rumor has it that they do anyway.  Can't imagine why.  Force of habit?  Just to keep their hand in?  So far as I can tell, it's wholly unnecessary.   

Hood Ornament

 Tuxedo-clad neighbor having a nap: a cool morning and a warm car hood.  As seen through a kitchen window perhaps in need of a soft cloth and some Windex.

Plus-ça-change Department

 Journalists ought not to be distrusted because they are worse than other people.  They are not.  They ought to be distrusted because they are more powerful than other people; because they have, like the priests of old, the keys of knowledge, and can if they will shut others out and go not in themselves.  A conspiracy of journalists could easily hurl the whole of this nation  upon political ruin.    

-G. K. Chesterton in "The World" September 20, 1904.

A Hymn for Election Day

O God of earth and altar,

Bow down and hear our cry,

Our earthly rulers falter,

Our people drift and die;

The walls of gold entomb us,

The swords of scorn divide,

Take not thy thunder from us,

But take away our pride.



From all that terror teaches,

From lies of tongue and pen,

From all the easy speeches

That comfort cruel men,

From sale and profanation

Of honour and the sword,

From sleep and from damnation,

Deliver us, good Lord.



Tie in a living tether

The prince and priest and thrall,

Bind all our lives together,

Smite us and save us all;

In ire and exultation

Aflame with faith, and free,

Lift up a living nation,

A single sword to thee.

(The music and text are in the old 1940 Hymnal at #521 . . . but since the text is one of G.K.'s poems, I actually copied  and pasted the above from the Chesterton Society's very useful webpage here.)

 

A Suggestion to Add to Daily Prayer

 -from the Fall 2024 number of Latin Mass magazine, page 6

As is often the case, you can click the above image to make it larger.  Possibly too large.  But certainly more legible.

Well That's Interesting . . . .

 Q. 338   Can a General Council Depose the Pope?

Strictly speaking, such a council could depose a Pope only in the case the Pope became a heretic, not however if he became immoral.  Where there are several pretenders, as happened during the Western Schism, the council passes on the claims of each, declares a certain one to be the rightful Pope, according to the proofs, and if this man approves the decrees he becomes the lawful  pontiff.  Even then he may abdicate.

-from "Setting it Right" , (1927), by the Rev. Dr. Charles F. McGinnis, Ph.D., S.T.L., formerly Professor of philosophy in St. Thomas College and Professor of Apologetics in College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minn., Author of "The Communion of Saints", etc., etc.

Babylon Bee Nails It Once Again

 

Well, tbh, as they say, I wouldn't definitely vote on that basis.

But I would be sorely tempted.

"Miracles of Stupidity"

The latest number of "Touchstone" actually arrived a couple of weeks or so ago.  But I only got into it the other day in my comfy chair while feeling sorry for myself and my cold or flu or whatever it was.  And still is, if it comes to that. At least a bit with the remains of the cough and the absence of energy still hanging on.

Where was I?

Oh, yes.  Touchstone.   Wonderful magazine.  You really should subscribe if you don't already.   This issue, the September/October 2024 number,  starts out with a bang, as it so often does, with a couple of paragraphs from S.M. Hutchens in the Quodlibet section.  Herewith:

“Radical inclusiveness,” like “reaching room temperature,” is a euphemism for death, and those who practice it doom themselves. An institution or organism is radically and actively exclusive, living by a rigid and infinitely complex rule of what it keeps in and out of itself to maintain integrity and health. It is a Miracle of Stupidity that leaders in the churches, who, above all people, should know better, seize upon and radicalize the concept of inclusiveness and make it a virtue in the reputed service of the Lord, who declared himself to be an instrument of radical division, the bringer of a sword, the separator of the saved and the damned. But such churchmen at least do the faithful the service of identifying themselves by their maxims as fools who are not to be followed.

“Miracles of Stupidity” into which people educate themselves are well worth identifying and enumerating—as, for example, “diversity-as-virtue,” a euphemism for the exclusion of the Other in the chaos of mass self-affirmation.

Wonderful way to start an issue.  And not one, but four pieces by Anthony Esolen should one continue to read further.  Tolle, lege, indeed. 

A Prayer for the Government

I know:  I've posted this before.   But I had the misfortune to be stuck listening to political television for what seemed like an hour but was probably, oh, 15 minutes or so.  Hence this collect.  

I think I acknowledged on the first posting that, considering who the individuals mentioned in this collect actually are, it's asking rather a lot of the dear Lord. But He is omnipotent; He can do it.  But do we deserve it?  Oh, dear.  I probably don't.  But you might.  

So:

 O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world: We commend this nation to Thy merciful care, that, being guided by Thy Providence, we may dwell secure in Thy peace. Grant to the President of these United States, the Governor of this State, and to all in authority, wisdom and strength to know and to do Thy will. Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness, and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve this people in Thy fear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Cardinal Burke's Novena

It occurred to me this morning that I never posted a reference to Cardinal Burke's nine month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe here on The Inn.  I meant to. . . but, alas, here we are four months late and still no link to the novena.  

Remedied herewith:  Cardinal Burke's Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  

The page linked above assumes that you are beginning now and now is the middle of March, which, of course, it isn't.  It's the middle of July.   You can begin in March if you like.  But that's a lot of catching up to do.  I suggest paging ahead to today, which would make it a novena of five months instead of nine.  Don't miss his past Reflections, though.  There are only two or three per month;  much easier to catch up.

(I wonder what a five month novena ought to be called?  Probably a quint- something.)

Another Carmel at the End of the Line

Fr Zuhlsdorf's excellent blog this morning cites us to a National Catholic Register article about yet another Carmel reaching the end of its life.  

The 412 year old Carmel of Lucerna in Spain is down to three nuns and must close.  Says the article:

The community of Discalced Carmelites of San José monastery in Lucena in Spain’s Córdoba province, to whom Pope Francis sent several messages because of his friendship with a former prioress, is being forced to leave after the order’s presence of more than 400 years in the city due to lack of vocations.

Mother Mary Magdalene of St. John of the Cross, prioress of the small community, explained in a statement that “with great pain and great sadness, because there are only three nuns left, the scarcity of vocations and being requested by another Carmel in need, we saw that it is God’s will that our mission here had concluded,” reported the Iglesia en Córdoba (The Church in Córdoba), a weekly newspaper of the Spanish diocese.

Fr Z's commentary is apt.  It's unfortunate that he has to say it at all;  it should be obvious.  But considering the state of the Church . . . apparently not.

 

Sad News from Lisieux

This story entitled "Little Flower’s Carmelite community faces ‘profound changes’" appeared as a recent post in the (relatively) new Catholic news page The Pillar.

I suspect you don't need me to tell you at least a couple of the causes:  Cor Orans and no new vocations for a very long time.

Perhaps I'm wrong?  It's been known to happen a time or two.  But the article is here; you can draw your own conclusions.

The Carmelite Martyrs of Guadalajara

 This Guadalajara is not in Mexico, but in Spain.  These Carmelite nuns were murdered during the Spanish civil war of the late 1930s.  Their feast day is today, 24 July.

Mrs Vidal relates their story here. 

Dear Assorted Charities, mostly Religious, a few not:

 You can stop sending me those cheap, skinny little bags with the charity logos and egregiously sentimental pictures on them.  I now have far more than any human being is ever likely to need or want.  In fact, the current supply and any more that arrive, will go to the St Vincent de Paul Society or the Good Will or whoever next says they're going to be coming around collecting. (Well, somebody might have a use for them.  Can't imagine who.  But you never know.)

Just for the record, if  I were going to donate to you, I would regardless of the presence of the little "tote bag" as you rather misleadingly call it, as actual tote bags are considerably larger.  And if I were not going to donate to you the "tote bag" isn't going to change my mind.

Instead, why not just tell me in the cover letter that your outfit is dropping the Novus Ordo and is going over to the traditional Roman Rite Mass.  

In Latin.  

I could scare up a few ducats for that.

Found While Looking for Something Else

 The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra playing in a railroad station a couple of years ago.  Not quite as large a complement of musicians as I'm used to seeing but still a delightful sound and some great tunes.

Friday the 13th . . .

 . . .comes on a Saturday this month so be careful not to break any ladders or walk under any black cats.

And above all, don't be superstitious.  It's bad luck to be superstitious.

It's the BB, So Meant as Satire, but . . . .

. . . .surprisingly true.  Mostly.

This one here. 

Our Annual Patriotic Bacchanalia Dawns

Well, here we are again:  the glorious 4th is upon us.  The legal fireworks won't begin until dusk as all they have going for them are the lights.  You need darkness to fully appreciate the twirling lights.   But the illegal ones.  Ah, yes.  They've been going on and off all afternoon.  One is apparently not sufficiently patriotic in the absence of explosive devices   Pyromania is all right in its place but unless you can detonate extremely loud explosions sufficient to terrify the neighbourhood pets, bring back PTSD in some of  the local veterans, and rattle the pictures on my wall you're just not trying.

This year some of the local freedom-loving brethren have added a sound system in their front lawn with a soul-deadening, multi-decibel, thumping bass.

Can H.M. King George III actually have been all that bad?

[Addendum:  Apparently these folks could use some lessons from our neighborhood.]

Hard Sayings from this morning's Mattins

This bit from the 78th psalm struck me particularly:

 I will declare hard sentences of old which we have heard and known,  and such as our fathers have told us:  That we should not hide them from the children of the generations to come,  but to show the honour of the Lord, his mighty and wonderful works that he hath done.

The RSV calls them "dark sayings".   I don't know if that's an improvement or not.  It does take the text in a different direction than the older version.   In any event, it's interesting the way a text one has read a hundred times, on the hundred and first reading carries one away on a completely unexpected meditation.

Some Old Collects That Some May Find . . . Useful

 

They shall not be partakers of the holy things,
till there arise up an high priest clothed with doctrine and truth.

V. Let Thy priests be clothed with righteousness

  R.   And let Thy saints sing with joyfulness.

Oremus.

We humbly beseech Thee, O Lord : that of Thy unbounded mercy Thou wouldst grant unto the holy Roman Church a Pontiff; who by his tender care towards us may ever find favour in Thy sight, and, studying to preserve Thy people in safety and in truth, may ever be honoured by us to the glory of Thy name.  Through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Let the abundance of Thy mercy assist us, O Lord : that we may rejoice to have a Pontiff pleasing in the sight of Thy majesty to be the governor of our holy mother the Church.  Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Make us, O Lord, to rejoice in the wondrous grace of Thy majesty :  that we may obtain a Pontiff meet to instruct Thy people in all godliness, and  pour forth upon the minds of Thy faithful the savour of spiritual sweetness.  Who livest and reignest.  Amen.

[Adapted from the propers of the Votive Mass For the Election of a Pope,

as given in the English Missal, 1933 edition.]

The Twenty-Ninth of May -- Oak Apple Day

I was about to make this the 4th or 5th time I've republished the same text about this great day.  But it's getting late  -  so I will instead cite you to last year's post here.

If it's late for you too and you've no mind to go clicking about the net you might at least want to have a listen to a sprightly little tune of the same name.  Herewith:

Resisting The Thought Police- the Horror of Thought Crime

English Easter Traditions

 Delightful article in the latest number of The Spectator on forgotten English Easter traditions.  You can find it here.

Well, not entirely forgotten or there would be no article.  You may have to subscribe; not sure about that.  Sometimes with these things you can get a few articles a month without a subscription.  Give the link a click and see what happens.  It's a good read.  E.g.:

If you get up early enough on Easter morning, according to old English folklore, you might be lucky enough to see the sun dancing in the sky as it rises, rejoicing at the resurrection of Christ – although tradition also records that the devil usually manages to put a hill in front of the dancing sun to stop people seeing it.

Happy Easter with the Regina Cæli

Joy to Thee, O Queen of Heaven!  Alleluia!

He Whom thou wast meet to bear, Alleluia!

As  he promised, hath arisen!  Alleluia!

Pour for us to God thy prayer!  Alleluia!

V/  Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary! Alleluia, Alleluia!

R/  For the Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia, Allelua!

Let us pray:  O God, who by the Resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, hath given joy unto the world:  grant we beseech Thee, that we, being holpen by the Virgin Mary, His mother, may attain unto the joys of everlasting life;  through the same Christ our Lord.  Amen.