A made-up Luther

After the traditional Mass yesterday, some children from one of our families gave me an early Halloween present: the Playmobil model of Martin Luther. This is a best-seller, apparently, having been issued in advance of next year's celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Martin's publishing his 95 theses and starting the Reformation.

Here are the contents of the box:

There is a rich learning opportunity here. The cloak could stand for the cloak of righteousness as in imputed justification: it clips on externally without changing Martin interiorly. You could discuss whether Martin should take off the clerical hat when he decides that the priesthood of the baptised is not distinct from the ministerial priesthood, or indeed whether the hat can be put on any other Playmobil figure that has been baptised. Then the scriptures could be taken away from Martin and made to stand on their own. Hours of fun.

Here's Martin made up with all his props:

Included in the box is a helpful map of places associated with Martin's life and legacy so that you can arrange a pilgrimage.

As far as I know, you can't get an indulgence for a pilgrimage to the holy sites of Martin yet, but who knows what surprises might await us in the great centenary?

By way of broadening the historical perspective, I got out my model of Martin's friend, John.

Unfortunately, they had some misunderstandings over the Eucharist, the priesthood, justification, indulgences, relics and other technical questions, but we know, boys and girls, that there won't be any misunderstandings for either of them now!

Byrd 3 at Margate for Christ the King

Next Sunday 30 October, at St Austin and St Gregory, Margate, we have a schola visiting to sing William Byrd's Mass for Three Voices at our 11.30am Missa Cantata. They will also sing Mariano Garau's O Bone Jesu, and Claudio Casciolini's Tantum Ergo. The group is led by Gregory Treloar, a music student at Canterbury Christ Church University. This is an opportunity for a group of young people to sing some beautiful sacred music in the liturgical setting for which it was composed, as well as for my parishioners to benefit from the same - and indeed our visitors.

Many thanks to the Latin Mass Society for a grant which has enabled us to plan this and a couple of other polyphonic Masses this year.

If you want some extra reasons to make a day trip to Margate next week, it is always worth seeing our lovely Church with its Edward Pugin Lady chapel. At the Turner Contemporary, there is currently a splendid exhibition of over 100 Turners on the theme of "Adventures in Colour." There are some excellent places for lunch, and a wealth of micropubs if you want to find good real ale. Naturally, after either, there is the possibility of a bracing walk on the beach (low tide will be at 6pm.) Margate is an hour and a half from St Pancras.

When England led the world in vestment making

The Butler-Bowdon Chasuble, 1398 – 1420

Before Henry VIII, England was known as one of the most devoutly Catholic countries of the world where the people's devotion to the Holy Mass, to Our Lady and the Saints, and to the Church was legendary. One spin-off from this culture was a standard of vestment making admired throughout the world.

Yesterday I had intended to visit the British Library at St Pancras, but a friend at the Keys convinced me to take the Piccadilly line in the other direction to one of my favourite places, and view an exhibition which is on at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 5 February 2017: Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery.

Over 100 pieces are gathered for the exhibition, most of them ecclesiastical vestments. The earliest are from the early 12th century, but the period of greatest popularity represented is the first half of the 14th century. Thus the growth of world-renowned expertise and enthusiasm for fine liturgical decoration coincided with the flowering of scholastic culture at, for example, places like Oxford and Cambridge. The overturning of that culture at the English reformation coincided with the physical destruction of the beautiful work that grew alongside it. The exhibition has one or two pitiful examples of work that was preserved by virtue of being disguised for secular use.

The splendid collection includes a rare High Mass set and some interesting chasubles like the Butler-Bowden chasuble above. From a modern bias towards a binary distinction between Roman and Gothic chasubles, they might seem hybrid, but I suppose they were simply a stage in the developing shape.

It is great that the V&A has put on another exhibition which draws on Catholic culture in England, and that it seems to be attracting a healthy number of visitors. As a result of following the course carefully, I now know what underside couching is.

Image credit: Victoria & Albert Museum website

When England led the world in vestment making

The Butler-Bowdon Chasuble, 1398 – 1420

Before Henry VIII, England was known as one of the most devoutly Catholic countries of the world where the people's devotion to the Holy Mass, to Our Lady and the Saints, and to the Church was legendary. One spin-off from this culture was a standard of vestment making admired throughout the world.

Yesterday I had intended to visit the British Library at St Pancras, but a friend at the Keys convinced me to take the Piccadilly line in the other direction to one of my favourite places, and view an exhibition which is on at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 5 February 2017: Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery.

Over 100 pieces are gathered for the exhibition, most of them ecclesiastical vestments. The earliest are from the early 12th century, but the period of greatest popularity represented is the first half of the 14th century. Thus the growth of world-renowned expertise and enthusiasm for fine liturgical decoration coincided with the flowering of scholastic culture at, for example, places like Oxford and Cambridge. The overturning of that culture at the English reformation coincided with the physical destruction of the beautiful work that grew alongside it. The exhibition has one or two pitiful examples of work that was preserved by virtue of being disguised for secular use.

The splendid collection includes a rare High Mass set and some interesting chasubles like the Butler-Bowden chasuble above. From a modern bias to distinguishing between Roman and Gothic chasubles, they might seem hybrid, but I suppose they were simply a stage in the developing shape.

It is great that the V&A has put on another exhibition which draws on Catholic culture in England, and that it seems to be attracting a healthy number of visitors. As a result of following the course carefully, I now know what underside couching is.

Image credit: Victoria & Albert Museum website

Happy feast day to our friends in Chicago

After returning from an overnight stay in London for a meeting of the Keys, I celebrated a quiet Mass in honour of St John Cantius whose feast day it is today in the traditional calendar. A physicist as well as a theologian, he helped gave impetus to the theory of impetus, furthering the scholastic foundations of modern science. He is one of the Polish saints canonised after the Reformation who formed a significant part of the list of saints.

Among traditionalist bloggers, he is known particularly as the patron saint of the fine Church in Chicago where Holy Mass is offered in both the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Roman Rite every day. Fr Frank Phillips, who became Pastor (Parish Priest) in 1988 began the work of physical restoration of the Church alongside the restoration of the liturgical life of the Church. He founded the Canons Regular of St John Cantius who continue with him to care for the parish today.

This video Saint John Cantius: Restoring the Sacred gives an idea of the amazing life of the parish.



It seemed like a good feast day to re-start the blog after a too-long hiatus. Happy feast day to my friends at St John Cantius!

Peter, teach us; confirm thy brethren

For my breakfast reading at the moment, I am enjoying Pius IX And His Time by the Rev Aeneas MacDowell Dawson which I obtained free of charge from Amazon. It is fascinating to discover the scope of the ministry of Blessed Pio Nono and his concern for the Church throughout the world at a time when his own liberty and life was threatened.

In the midst of great troubles, he consulted the bishops of the world on the advisability of defining doctrine of the immaculate conception of our Blessed Lady. He gathered in Rome the largest concourse of Bishops since the 4th Lateran Council in 1215. The question arose whether the bishops would assist him in coming to a decision and pronounce simultaneously with him, or leave the final judgement to him alone. MacDowell reports:

[...] the debate, as if by inspiration from on high, came suddenly to a close. It was the Angelus hour. The prelates had scarcely resumed their places after the short prayer, and exchanged a few words, when they made a unanimous declaration in favor of the supremacy of St. Peter's chair: Petre, doce nos; confirma fratres tuos - "Peter, teach us; confirm thy brethren."

Three cheers! A new lectionary in the pipeline - using the RSV

Ten years ago, I reported the news that Ignatius Press had produced a lectionary using the text of the Revised Standard Version 2nd Catholic edition and that it had been approved for use - in the Antilles. I suggested then, that "It would be a very good thing if this version were approved for use in England."

In November 2015, there was some good news on this front which went largely unnoticed. In the Plenary session of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, one of the short resolutions was:

Lectionary
The Bishops’ Conference agrees to seek the approval of the Holy See for the use of the Revised Standard Version (2nd Catholic edition 2010) and the Revised Grail Psalter (2010) in the preparation of a Lectionary for use in England and Wales.

I don't think there are any major changes to the 2010 version, so I presume (and hope) that the approval of the Holy See would not present any problems.

Since there may be some questions regarding details, it would be well to clarify a few points.

• The RSV Catholic edition of 1966 is still legitimate for use in England and Wales, though no new lectionaries using this version have been produced for many years. 
• The 2006 (2nd Catholic edition) published by Ignatius, was brought into accord with Liturgiam Authenticam. 
• The most noticeable change is the use of modern pronouns and verb forms. In the 1966, the form such as "Thou didst" were used in texts where God is addressed directly. 
• Other changes relate particularly to favouring Catholic renderings of versions of disputed texts. The most famous of these is the translation "Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son" (Is 7.14) rather than "young woman." 
• The RSV is very different from the New Revised Standard Version. The NRSV was strongly committed to inclusive language (see this page for information) and was rejected for liturgical use by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

To be honest, I don't know what differences, if any, there are between the 2006 and 2010 editions, but I would be surprised if there were any important ones.

For English Catholics, the change to using the RSV will be a vast improvement. We have been largely limited to the Jerusalem Bible version which is not a translation from the original texts but from a French translation. Worse than that, it is filled with laughable colloquialisms.

Off the top of my head, and therefore without references, but with a weary familiarity with an utterly undignified text, here are just a very few examples of what we may soon be able to say goodbye to:

"You make a fine king of Israel and no mistake!" [Jezebel to Ahab]
"Peter, who had practically nothing on ..."
"Simon, son of John, you are a happy man ..."
"and he began to feel the pinch" [the prodigal son]
"Leave off! That will do!" [Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane]
"You don't seem to have grasped the situation at all" [Caiaphas]

It would be worth publicising your favourite silly verses from the current Jerusalem Bible lectionary, because as sure as night follows day, we can expect a whingeing sub-marxist campaign against this sensible and long overdue resolution of the Bishops. Be prepared to be told how you, the people, are being oppressed by the fancy words and non-inclusive language of the inspired scriptures translated with reasonable accuracy.

Confession leaflets back online

People quite often ask me for the confession leaflets that I published on the website of my previous parish. Fr Zuhlsdorf was kind enough recently to make them available via his blog. I have now found a home for them on an almost dormant website that I set up a few years ago for my own stuff. Here is a link to the downloads page. I am delighted to make them available for priests and catechists, but please don't email me asking for permission to use them. As the page says, they are released under a creative commons licence and you can use them without asking (I do receive enough email to keep me from getting lonely, thanks.)

I have a number of old files that could do with a bit of editing and sprucing-up, but will be suitable for adding to the page. Now that colour printing via internet-based firms is so much cheaper than it used to be, I'll be converting the confession leaflets and some other things to make colour versions available as well.

And maybe some articles from my personal archive ...

Saint Gemma, scourge of the crypto-modernists

Today, 11 April is the feast of Saint Gemma Galgani generally - the Passionists celebrate her feast on 16 May. I just reminded myself in time yesterday when I was looking up various calendars for feasts that are usually missed, such as that of Saint Philomena on 11 August - or indeed that of Saint John Nepomuk on 16 May. He could be important for Margate since we have such a large number of Czech and Slovak people in the parish.

Saint Gemma was one of those saints of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who excited the rabid opposition of those I am increasingly inclined to think were crypto-modernists. If you want another example, consider the scorn with which the process for the canonisation of Saint Bernadette was regarded by Fr Herbert Thurston SJ. And don't get me started on the liberal sceptic attack on Saint Philomena in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

The "problem" with Saint Gemma (and I suppose Saint Bernadette) was that she was favoured by Almighty God with extraordinary manifestations. I think that she was an extraordinarily great saint and that we do well so seek her intercession.

For further information and links, see my previous posts Saint Gemma Galgani, Saint Gemma prayers, and Not just the stigmata .... There is also the Saint Gemma Galgani website and you can read the Letters of St Gemma Galgani online.

Saint Gemma Galgani, pray for us.

"He placed his hand on his breast and would bless none of them"

Saint Charles Borromeo is one of my favourite saints. A great reformer in the true sense, he was austere in his personal life, but generous in his use of all the outward signs which would emphasise the sacredness of his office. He was a stickler for the proper observance of liturgical ceremonial, but kindly towards those who made unintentional mistakes. He was much loved by the poor, not least because of his heroic ministration of the sacraments during the plague, but also because of his generosity.

Ecclesiastical censures were a part of his daily ministry, used by him for their salutary purpose, regardless of the dangers with which he was sometimes threatened by the powerful who resented his integrity. He was also adamantine in using them to draw people to genuine conversion, without succumbing to the weakness of a false mercy that would leave them in their sin. One episode, which the biographer describes as remarkable, occurred when Saint Charles was making a visitation of the Diocese of Brescia and travelled through the valley of Camonica which was influenced by the Calvinists. In Plano, the people were under interdict for failing to pay their tithes, but they were enthusiastic to see the Saint:

"As the cardinal passed through, they all ran out to see him, wishing to get his blessing; but he placed his hand on his breast and would bless none of them. Deeming they were deprived of a great treasure, they ran after him, weeping and crying for pity, begging him not to leave them without granting the boon. As he wished them to acknowledge their fault, he paid no attention to them, telling them to obey their Bishop and pay their tithes."

He later sent a trusted colleague to preach to them, and promise the blessing of the Cardinal if they would do their duty. They accordingly repented, received absolution (from the sin and the censure) and were able to welcome Saint Charles on his return, when he said Mass for them, and gave them his blessing.

I have just finished Giussano's monumental Life of St Charles, which is available free at the Internet Archive. I paid 99p on Amazon for a nicely made-up copy for my kindle. It was one of those books I felt sad to reach the end of, so yesterday I was looking around for something good to read. For the sum of £0.00 I found Pius IX and His Time by Æneas MacDonell Dawson. Enjoying it so far.