BRIGHTON PROCESSION IN HONOUR OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

To celebrate the Year of Faith, as an "act of faith" tomorrow night, through some of the streets of this parish

8th December at 7pm there is a 

PROCESSION IN HONOUR OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

It is the first time we have done such a thing, the singing might be a bit ragged, as might the procession, there could be 20 people or a few hundred, if you live in Brighton, join us. 

We will start at the Church and end up on the seafront in the place where we feed the hungry.

P.S. The image bears no resemblance to the statue that will be used in the procession

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Yet Another Re-presentation of the Tablet Survey

I don't think the Tablet can cope with the Church in the Modern World, one blogger suggested it might be sponsored by "Saga", it is full of nostalgic, looking backwards to the time when it cutting edge and its staff youthful.

They put up survey looking at the change in Mass texts introduced last Advent. I went to see if they had published the results yet, they haven't. But then they had to change the original survey a couple of times because, ...well, I except whoever compiled the survey doesn't actually go to Mass that often.

So if you click on the appropriate page you get this, "... this survey replaces one that was on our site briefly last weekend and which we unfortunately had to take down due to technical difficulties. That means any submission received before Wednesday won't be counted in our survey results".

Interestingly the new survey asks about attachment to the Traditional Mass presumably because that wickedly charitable Fr Zhulsdorf got his hordes to respond, just to help the Tablet out. Or maybe it just the Tablet suspects those who actually have the affrontary to prefer the new translations might also be rabid enough to go to Mass in both "Forms". Being the Tablet and riddled with nostalgia they refer to it disparagingly as the "Tridentine" Mass.

They have also caught onto the fact that some people in dim appartments in Montana might actually spend all night, clicking on the survey over and over again.

I would have loved to have seen the results of the survey before it was "re-presented", I suspect it might have made Ma and co choke on their hobnobs.
Do have yet another go, see if they prefer the revised text of the survey rather than old ICEL version cobbled together on the back of a Warwick Street Newsletter.

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Birmingham Jesuits Host Call to Action

How sad the Jesuits in Birmingham are hosting A Call To Action in Manressa House this weekend.

Manressa House is the home of the novitiate for the Provinces of Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and North Belgium. Presumably this event is taking place with the agreement of the Provincial and the "Formators" at Manressa House.


How far they are from that unserving loyalty to the Church for which St Edmund Campion died.
St Ignatius must be weeping.

I miss attributed the organisation of the Brentwood event to a very reputable priest, my appologies.
It was in fact organised by an ex-priest a Mr Tony Castle at St Thomas of Canterbury church hall in Grays, Essex, who is in fact a school inspector.

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Being called "Catholic"

According to the Pope's latest Motu Proprio, "On the Service of Charity"

A charitable agency may use the name “Catholic” only with the written consent of the competent authority, as laid down by canon 300 CIC.

So what about The Tablet which describes itself as the "International Catholic News Weekly"? As it describes itself as "International" the competant authority to grant permission to use the word "Catholic" is the Holy See (canon 312 CIC). I hope the next addition has the written permission fom the competant authority displayed on the front cover.

Presumably nothing can stop Tina Beattie describing herself as a Professor of Catholic Studies providing she is merely studying Catholicism as a phenonema rather than claiming she is a Catholic Professor or claiming to teach Catholicism. However it does seem strange that having had her invitation to speak Clifton Cathedral cancelled she is now speaking at the invitation of Westminster Diocese's Justice and Peace Commission, presumably, as she has recently become such a controversial figure, with the personal sanction of Archbishop Nichols.

The Motu Proprio does state that the Bishop(s) are responsible for the theological formation and direction of Catholic organisations, they cannot wash their hands of this responsibility and leave it up to ambiguously "Catholic" theological advisors, as Cafod has done and been alllowed to do in the past.

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Two Calendars

Having just tittered at the Bones' Tablet calendar, I have just been looking at my Papa Stronsay Calendar, the good brothers sent it to me as Christmas gift, and maybe as gentle suggestion I might advertse it but for £5, it is worth it, there are some beautiful photographs.
It is good way of giving alms to this young and flourishing community at the end of beyond, and a good way too of praying for these generous and heroic young men month by month.
Maybe in the New Year I might make a pilgrimage to Golgotha, every report I have from those who have visited them is good and positive, I would like to see for me self.

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Therapy and Healing

Cathcon calls this "not just liturgical decadence but depravity", as much as I respect Chris he doesn't live in Brighton where we know about real depravity. I would suggest it is sad, in the same way as that Italian Archbishop, in pink with facepaint is sad. Both would have me running out of Church, and if I was a parent I would wonder if my child was quite safe in these situations and not just from a spiritual point of view.

Both seem to be about clergy and communities who have lost sight of the Mass as being anything beyond a source of social cohesion, both are serious signs of a tired Church, which is decaying, decadent, that has lost any sense that it supposed to bring Mankind into the presence of God, it is merely horizantal.

The video shows two women wafting incense around whilst a man bellows that, now ancient, and certainly tired ditty, "Spirit of the Living God", whilst a congregation looks on bored.
The great problem is that with "liturgies" of this kind is that they say more about the celebrant than Christ and His Church. We priest are often inadequate, sometimes quite damaged, like the rest of mankind we have to learn to live with that but so often in the "reformed" liturgy, the liturgy can be used as form of therapy, not for the congregation but for the priest or bishop.

I am sure the Italian Archbishop is a fun nice guy but what is his problem? Why is he so desperate to to communicate his ability to be approachable, "at one with his people"? Actually, there is something quite sinister about it, an old man with face paint is very strange. There seems to be a certain moral weakness at the heart of this, a sense that he, and his even more sinister looking priests, needs to be accepted and loved maybe. Why is he not content to let Jesus speak through him, why does he have to get in the way?

The Church is for the damaged; prayer, the sacraments heal, so does feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. Jesus tells us to do those things as good things aimed at ourselves first, before they are a service to others, so that we might forget self and learn to live for others. That is Christian therapy, not the blatant celebration of self but learning to disregard self.
Monophonic Chant, the Church's music is about the many forgetting themselves so as to sing perfectly at the same pitch and rhythm so only the voice of the Church praising God sounds, when any individual stands out it becomes ugly and is distorted. We have to learn to say with the Baptist, "I must decrease...".

The liturgy too is healing but the healing comes through conforming ourselves  to Christ and forgetting self, personally I find the traditional Mass helps this damaged, foolish, inadequate man to come closer to God, it is all that dark muttering about being unworthy and then turning to the people to tell them "Dominus vobiscum" or announcing "This is the Lamb.... Maybe it is the quite muttering of one's sinfulness with a few intimates that gives a model in the ancient rites, maybe having a public pentential rite actually within Pauline Mass itself makes us want to exhibit our inadequacies publicly.

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Father Michel-Marie

There is a rather edfifying story of a priest in Marseilles on Chiesa

 There is a peace upon him, a joy that is astonishing. But who are you?, you would like to ask him immediately.

In front of a frugal meal, the highlights of an entire life. Two splendid parents. The mother, baptized but only formally Catholic, allows her son to go to church. The faith is imparted to him "by an elderly priest, a Salesian in a black cassock, a man of generous and boundless faith.” The desire, at the age of eight, to be a priest. At thirteen he loses his mother: "The pain devastated me. And yet I never doubted God.” Adolescence, music, and that beautiful voice. The piano bars of Paris, which may seem little suited to discerning a religious vocation. And yet, while the decision slowly ripens, the spiritual fathers of Michel-Marie tell him to keep to the nightlife of Paris: because there as well a sign is needed. Finally the vocation pays off. In 1999, at the age of 40, his childhood wish comes true: a priest, and in a cassock, like that elderly Salesian. Why the cassock? "For me" – he smiles – "It is a work uniform. It is intended to be a sign for those who meet me, and above all for those who do not believe. In this way I am recognizable as a priest, always. In this way on the streets I take advantage of every opportunity to make friends. Father, someone asks me, where is the post office? Come on, I'll go with you, I reply, and meanwhile we talk, and I discover that the children of that man are not baptized. Bring them to me, I say in the end; and I often baptize them later. I seek in every way to show with my face a good humanity. Just the other day" – he laughs – "in a cafe an old man asked me which horses he should bet on. I gave him the horses. I asked the Blessed Mother for forgiveness: but you know, I said to her, it is to befriend this man. As a priest who was one of my teachers used to tell those who asked him how to convert the Marxists: 'One has to become their friend,' he would reply." Then, in church, the Mass is stark and beautiful. The affable priest of Canabière is a rigorous priest. Why take so much care with the liturgy? "I want everything to be splendid around the Eucharist. I want that at the elevation, the people should understand that He is here, truly. It is not theater, it is not superfluous pomp: it is inhabiting the Mystery. The heart too needs to feel."

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