Someone’s summarised my parish

Fr John Boyle is visiting a few parishes away (staying with a young chap I used to ruhtlessly exploit for lifts when we had the same lectures a couple of years ago) – what he describes is pretty much my parish. Our sisters are Saleisan sisters, not whatever they have in Ursus. Sadly our adoration chapel is more of a random corner, and we’re stuck with the crappy mitteleuropa allthecandlesononesideofthealtar arrangement, but then we have a lovely organ and a great bookshop (ask Tepidus). Also we’re not in a remote former industrial suburb of Warsaw , but in a green leafy one on the metro line . So if after all those French religious congregations you’d like an idea of standard Polish urban parishes,  mosey over to Fr Boyle’s. (He has us on his “good blogs list”, so he must be a good thing.)

 

More happiness (bis)

I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all. I would like Jesus to be present. I would like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us. I would like the friends of Heaven to be gathered around us from all parts. I would like myself to be a rent payer to the Lord; that I should suffer distress, that he would bestow a good blessing upon me. I would like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings. I would like to be watching Heaven’s family drinking it through all eternity.

 

Pope’s address to Scots bishops is online :)

Here.

Hand in hand with a proper appreciation of the priest’s role is a correct understanding of the specific vocation of the laity. Sometimes a tendency to confuse lay apostolate with lay ministry has led to an inward-looking concept of their ecclesial role. Yet the Second Vatican Council’s vision is that wherever the lay faithful live out their baptismal vocation – in the family, at home, at work – they are actively participating in the Church’s mission to sanctify the world. A renewed focus on lay apostolate will help to clarify the roles of clergy and laity and so give a strong impetus to the task of evangelizing society.

The then Ratzinger read my mind as I sat in a pew in Sacred Heart, Lauriston, some years ago , listening to some  sermon and thought to myself  “this chap has no idea what Just Christians are for, this is why he thinks we all ought to be doing stuff on the sanctuary”.  (He was very nice, and very well-meaning, this priest, and he had some sermons that were very movingly heartfelt, even if he did once say that there were 10 ecumenical councils, and things of that sort. I also had the impression that he was sure we needed Relevance and so on to convince us that the whole business was worth it, but I can’t remember whether it was him or another Jesuit for whom I felt really sorry, when he didn’t seem to be convinced himself that spending an hour or so before the Blessed Sacrament on a First Friday evening was a worthwhile alternative to the meat markets of the Grassmarket.)

Actually, here’s all of it because L’Oss has a rolling “daily issue” content, I think.

***

Dear Brother Bishops,
I extend a warm welcome to all of you on your ad Limina visit to Rome. I thank you for the kind words that Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien has addressed to me on your behalf, and I assure you of my constant prayers for you and for the faithful entrusted to your care. Your presence here expresses a reality that lies at the heart of every Catholic diocese – its relationship of communio with the See of Peter, and hence with the universal Church. Pastoral initiatives that take due account of this essential dimension bring authentic renewal:  when the bonds of communion with the universal Church, and in particular with Rome, are accepted joyfully and lived fully, the people’s faith can grow freely and yield a harvest of good works.
It is a happy coincidence that the Year for Priests, which the whole Church is currently celebrating, marks the four hundredth anniversary of the priestly ordination of the great Scottish martyr Saint John Ogilvie. Rightly venerated as a faithful servant of the Gospel, he was truly outstanding in his dedication to a difficult and dangerous pastoral ministry, to the point of laying down his life. Hold him up as an example for your priests today. I am glad to know of the emphasis you place on continuing formation for your clergy, especially through the initiative “Priests for Scotland”. The witness of priests who are genuinely committed to prayer and joyful in their ministry bears fruit not only in the spiritual lives of the faithful, but also in new vocations. Remember, though, that your commendable initiatives to promote vocations must be accompanied by sustained catechesis among the faithful about the true meaning of priesthood. Emphasize the indispensable role of the priest in the Church’s life, above all in providing the Eucharist by which the Church herself receives life. And encourage those entrusted with the formation of seminarians to do all they can to prepare a new generation of committed and zealous priests, well equipped humanly, academically and spiritually for the task of ministry in the twenty-first century.
Hand in hand with a proper appreciation of the priest’s role is a correct understanding of the specific vocation of the laity. Sometimes a tendency to confuse lay apostolate with lay ministry has led to an inward-looking concept of their ecclesial role. Yet the Second Vatican Council’s vision is that wherever the lay faithful live out their baptismal vocation – in the family, at home, at work – they are actively participating in the Church’s mission to sanctify the world. A renewed focus on lay apostolate will help to clarify the roles of clergy and laity and so give a strong impetus to the task of evangelizing society.
That task requires a readiness to grapple firmly with the challenges presented by the increasing tide of secularism in your country. Support for euthanasia strikes at the very heart of the Christian understanding of the dignity of human life. Recent developments in medical ethics and some of the practices advocated in the field of embryology give cause for great concern. If the Church’s teaching is compromised, even slightly, in one such area, then it becomes hard to defend the fullness of Catholic doctrine in an integral manner. Pastors of the Church, therefore, must continually call the faithful to complete fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium, while at the same time upholding and defending the Church’s right to live freely in society according to her beliefs.
The Church offers the world a positive and inspiring vision of human life, the beauty of marriage and the joy of parenthood. It is rooted in God’s infinite, transforming and ennobling love for all of us, which opens our eyes to recognize and love his image in our neighbour (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 10-11 et passim). Be sure to present this teaching in such a way that it is recognized for the message of hope that it is. All too often the Church’s doctrine is perceived as a series of prohibitions and retrograde positions, whereas the reality, as we know, is that it is creative and life-giving, and it is directed towards the fullest possible realization of the great potential for good and for happiness that God has implanted within every one of us.
The Church in your country, like many in Northern Europe, has suffered the tragedy of division. It is sobering to recall the great rupture with Scotland’s Catholic past that occurred four hundred and fifty years ago. I give thanks to God for the progress that has been made in healing the wounds that were the legacy of that period, especially the sectarianism that has continued to rear its head even in recent times. Through your participation in Action of Churches Together in Scotland, see that the work of rebuilding unity among the followers of Christ is carried forward with constancy and commitment. While resisting any pressure to dilute the Christian message, set your sights on the goal of full, visible unity, for nothing less can respond to the will of Christ.
You can be proud of the contribution made by Scotland’s Catholic schools in overcoming sectarianism and building good relations between communities. Faith schools are a powerful force for social cohesion, and when the occasion arises, you do well to underline this point. As you encourage Catholic teachers in their work, place special emphasis on the quality and depth of religious education, so as to prepare an articulate and well-informed Catholic laity, able and willing to carry out its mission “by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God” (Christifideles Laici, 15). A strong Catholic presence in the media, local and national politics, the judiciary, the professions and the universities can only serve to enrich Scotland’s national life, as people of faith bear witness to the truth, especially when that truth is called into question.
Later this year, I shall have the joy of being present with you and the Catholics of Scotland on your native soil. As you prepare for the Apostolic Visit, encourage your people to pray that it will be a time of grace for the whole Catholic community. Take the opportunity to deepen their faith and to rekindle their commitment to bear witness to the Gospel. Like the monks from Iona who spread the Christian message throughout the length and breadth of Scotland, let them be beacons of faith and holiness for the Scottish people today.
With these thoughts, I commend your apostolic labours to the intercession of Our Lady, Saint Andrew, Saint Margaret and all the saints of Scotland. To all of you, and to your clergy, religious and lay faithful I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of peace and joy in the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Scots ad limina

Unlikely to get as much coverage in the blogosphere, but far more important!

Cardinal O’Brien is due to speak with Pope Benedict on Friday and is expected to tell him ‘we now look forward to your visit to Scotland in the autumn and assure you of a very wonderful welcome from all of the peoples of Scotland.’

Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow, speaking about his archdiocese, added that: “The clergy are in good heart, the faithful are devout… The physical needs of the Church are being addressed with many of our historic churches being repaired through the support of public funds and the Cathedral undergoing a major renovation in good time for the celebration of its second centenary and hopefully for the visit of the Holy Father later this year.”

Prior to the ad limina Bishop Philip Tartaglia of Paisley told the SCO: “I am not alone in hoping that the revised English translation of the Roman Missal, to be published sometime in 2011, will help to make the liturgy more uplifting and have a beneficial effect on liturgical practice. In fact, the suggestion has been made that the Holy Father might use the new texts at the Masses he will celebrate in his forthcoming visit to the United Kingdom, but we do not know how that suggestion will be received.”

From the new SCO blog.

 

Exasperated with questionnaires

A certain number of years ago (though I would no longer freely confess their exact number) I, in a youthful spirit, voluntarily took part in a big, Germany-wide questionnaire asking people who just finished their Abitur (~A-levels) what they thought and wanted to do with their lives. A short time ago, the follow-up arrived. Knowing how annoying it is for a scientist if they get missing or nonsensical data, I groaned, but set down to tackle about ten pages of questions on what I think now and what I have done so far. I also felt compelled to show that there are people my age who would class “religion & spirituality” (“spirituality”: ptui!) as being “very important” to them and nevertheless had been reasonably successful in their educational/vocational activities so far.

Soon, however, the thing had me baffled. “I’m afraid”, I said to a colleague “that in someone’s scientific work I am just now playing the sulphur atom clinging to the plant matrix and avoiding being analysed, thus messing up the whole data set.” It is all right with questions on “how much do you earn”, or: “how many hours do you work per week”. But when they come to assess your attitude, the mere phrasing of questions and alternatives is steeped in a world view quite at variance with my own. In the question “How important (1-5) are the following things in your life:”, where do I fit in “struggling to do God’s will, whatever that may entail in terms of ‘success in my job’ or ‘time spent with my family’”? Would “developing my personality” be the right option for that? I doubt it. Then, what about: “I have achieved basically everything I have wished for so far. True? (1-5)”. Taking above aim (struggling to do God’s will), I’d sadly have to cross one of the lower numbers, but if you compare that with all my answers on success in and satisfaction with my work, you will register an inexplicable deviance. And so on.

There is yet another type of questionnaire with which I have been confronted in my numerous “soft skill” and didactics courses. There are any number of personality tests, from the Myers-Briggs test (someone knowledgeable tell me if the whole concept behind that is rubbish, or only some of its applications), to tests on “What is your most important time thief”. These, I also tend to mess up entirely, mainly because of the following problem. Anyone having dealt with test theory will know better than I that every item has to be questioned not only once, but several times, phrased slightly different each time. Now the different phrasing happily mixes questions about facts: “I am a very punctual and orderly person” with those about aspirations and values: “Orderliness is very important to me”, or:  “I think being punctual is a matter of politeness”, and so on. In the end, the answers to all these questions are treated as being equivalent. I have been much puzzled about this apparent nonsense (someone might be entirely chaotic and still ever see a well-ordered life as a golden beacon of aspiration in the far distance). Reading McIntyre’s “After Virtue”, I suddenly understood the far more sinister background of this apparent ineptness: It is one more sign of the loss of the Aristotelian triad of “man-as-he-is”, “man-as-he-is-meant-to-be” and the cultivation of virtue / avoidance of vices as a way from one to the other. These questionnaires, oblivious, it seems, to the distinctions, happily mix the questions directed to “me-as-I-am” and to “me-as-I wish-&-ought-to-be”.

“After Virtue” proves to be a fount of illumination (to me at least) page by page. It is possible that I may bother the patient readership here with other specimens of it in the future, although this is, I am well aware, a poor substitute to Berenike’s less lengthy and either more substantial or wittier contributions, so cruelly denied to us again over months!

 

Of your charity pray for the soul of Ralph McInerny

 

I’m sure I would not agree with every word he uttered or wrote in his life, perhaps his patriotism sometime clouded his Thomism, but this man held up the torch of faith when almost everyone else compromised and surrendered to the spirit of the age. We owe him so much; it is hard to know where to begin. A man whom I consider a saint once told me that McInerny was a saint. Do not think that that means he does not need our prayers; think rather that he can transform them into even more powerful instruments of that renewal of the Church for which he gave his life. And if he needs one last shove over the threshold, he will be all the more grateful for our assistance and eloquent in this great cause when he beholds at last that Face the love of which gives all earthly desire the flavour of ash. 

Praeambula Fidei

The Writings of Charles De Koninck

 

 

Nephew

emerged aafely into the cold extra-uterine world last night. “Looks like a small furry armadillo” wrote b. in law.  “Boob limpet” says sister, when asked if he feeds well. Looked very cute over webcam an hour ago. Great-gran in giggly ecstasy.  Aunt tres chuffed.

 

Outta here

for the most part. Till Easter.  Get holier inthe meantime. byee!

 

Quite obvious, seen thus

The baby doesn’t understand English and the devil knows Latin.

Ronald Knox when asked to perform a baptism in the vernacular.

 

Wee interview- those EF diocesan priests of Frejus-Toulon

Can’t embed, alas, but here’s an interview with the ex-FSSP co-founder of the Missionaries of Divine Mercy (the other being the Wonderful Bishop Rey:) ) – French, but if I can understand what he’s saying, any ful with a standard grade in French can.

Le interview.

That previous post about them. And remember. Frejus-Toulon: 1/95 of French dioceses, 80ish/756 of French seminarians.