Dublin Eucharistic Congress

I have been rather busy lately consequently I haven't seen or read much about the Dublin Eucharistic Congress, I would be very interested to hear from those who attended, or those who can give links to good "catechesis".

These are some images from Google, some are more impressive than others. 

What I find a little concerning is that the "Benedictine arrangement" has not reached Dublin yet and the rather relaxed attitudes of the clergy, there seems to be a bit of a 1970s feel to it all but maybe that is just the images that come up on Google. What I found impressive were the pictures of so many elderly people out in the "soft" weather.

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Dom Mark Kirby on Exposition

Dom Mark Kirby says I have inspired him, he says what I had tried to say but much much more eloquently, Read it here

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The Message to the Dublin Eucharistic Conference

He has interesting things on the Sacred Liturgy and the interpretation of Vatican but I presume what he has to say abuse, which is what the Irish media will focus on, will do little to placate secular Ireland's rage, but then what will?
The full text is here

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I am not in favour of frequent Exposition

Sitting on our benches, or kneeling on our kneelers is a truly purgatorial experience, they really are uncomfortable even so many of our parishioners spent not only the night but many hours during the day in the Lord's presence. The faith of my people builds up and sharpens my own faith, in the same way as sometimes their faithlessness dulls or blunts my own. We need the example of one another, it builds us up and gives us courage.

Normally we can't afford flowers but a disabled lady living on a state pension and nothing else gave a hundred pounds for them and another hundred towards candles. We also sold candles at £2 apiece for the last month and encouraged people to put small labels on them for people's intentions, it helped to build up a sense that something was happening, they formed a wall of light raked on the gradine and the of profit on them paid in large part for the candles, on the altar.

I was I am truly edified by the faith and beauty of what we did, for the most part we allowed God to speak in silence.

That being said I am not in favour of the current trend for frequent Exposition, it seems to encourage a type of receptionism and undermine the fact that Lord is truly present and able to be adored when reserved in the tabernacle. I think there is a real danger in promoting a piety that says that he can only be adored or treated with reverence when he is exposed in the monstrance. In part I suspect this is result of the confusion after the Council about reservation in a side chapel. In many places diocesan bishops demanded the removal of the Blessed Sacrament to a side chapel, with the consequence that many even the basics of Eucharistic piety were not only lost but undermined.

Exposition and Benediction were traditionally high points, always involving putting out more candles, having servers, using incense, a priest wearing cope and for Benediction a humeral veil. The modern directory on Eucharistic Devotion  seems to down play all these, having no more candles than at Mass, for example, and often the exposing and reposing is done by an extra-ordinary minister of Holy Communion, with no priest present, and even if one is present it is often done without Benediction. The problem is making something which should be done with as much solemnity as possible worker-day and prosaic.
I do appreciate the intentions of those who try to encourage devotion to the Blessed Sacrament but starting with Exposition rather than the reception of Holy Communion and reverence to the reserved Blessed Sacrament seems to me a dangerous mistake.

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Blessed be God!

There are not many English parish priests who will find at 4.30 in the morning fourteen people at prayer in his church. I really am very pleased with how well 40 Hours is going. The Lord calls his own, and his own seek him out.
I am pleased with how well the Liturgy of the Hours has been going. We have sung it, those who have been present when we have done it, although they are quite unfamiliar with it, have joined in, not untunefully. It is surprising how few resources for the Ordinary Form Office are actually available in the vernacular.
More pictures here

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Forty Hours

From eight this morning until midnight on Friday we are holding Forty Hours in solidarity with the Dublin Eucharistic Congress.

We really are praying in the heart of the city. I have been impressed by the number of people who have signed up to watch, some have given up a day's work either to come and celebrate the Liturgy of the hours or to watch and pray at odd hours. As one of my parishioners who has signed up to watch through the night said, "God has been so generous to me, how could I not be generous to him".

It is the first time we have done it in any of the Brighton and Hove deanery parishes for forty years. It is bit low key, only one pressed server at the opening Mass this morning, the Office will probably be sung by me and choir mistress but God will provide.
There are more pictures here

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Where Peter is there is the Church and there is God.

I pray for the full re-integration of the SSPX. I was pleased that Bishop Fellay had a two and a half hour meeting with Cardinal Levada yesterday and seems to have been sent off to reconsider what the SSPX phrase "the errors of the Council". I really do think that the Church needs the SSPX but I believe the SSPX needs the Church more.
I have a simple Englishman's faith, that goes along with King Oswiu at the Synod of Whitby, who asked the Celtic bishops, "When I die, who will open to me the gates of heaven, will it be Columba or will it be Peter? The Celtic bishops of course had to answer that it would be Peter, and became Catholic. The same question has to be put to the SSPX bishops, union with Peter is not about anything less than salvation itself.
Yes, of course God can choose to save us outside of visible Communion with the Pope but as Catholics we know that full and visible Communion is God's plan and desire.
Rorate carries an interview with Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais which I find shocking in its arrogance and presumption and in its recklessness towards the salvation of souls. I have no doubt that Archbishop Lefebvre chose the four bishops he consecrated, not to lead the SSPX but to dispense that sacraments. In this interview one can see why, and why the Holy See intends to deal with the bishops individually.
As much as one desires the communion of all humanity to the Church one has to accept that for some this will never be.

The union of Christians cannot be fostered otherwise than by promoting the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ, which in the past they so unfortunately abandoned; return, we say to the one true Church of Christ which is plainly visible to all and which by the will of her Founder forever remains what He Himself destined her to be for the common salvation of men. ...No one is in the Church of Christ, and no one remains in it, unless he acknowledges and accepts with obedience the authority and power of Peter and his legitimate successors... Therefore, to this apostolic See, founded in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the apostles, consecrated with their blood, to this See which is the `root and matrix of the Catholic Church', may our dissidentsons return; let them do so, not with the thought and hope that `the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth', willsacrifice the integrity of the faith, but, on the contrary, with the intention ofsubmitting to her authority and government..."      Pope Pius XI: 1927 Encyclical Letter Mortalium animos

Ultimately the issue isn't about the teaching of Vatican II, it is about communion with Peter: ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi Deus, (where Peter is there is the Church and there is God). For some members of the SSPX there is mystical Church, a spiritual Rome that only the pure and elect can see, that is not what God has given us but a messy,  fish smelling, sweaty crewed barque of Peter.

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