Papal Vespers

Thanks to NLM for the above and other screen grabs from the Papal Vespers last evening for the first Sunday of Advent.

The Holy Father now has a new ferula, or pastoral staff, donated by the Circolo San Pietro, and similar to the one used by Blessed Pope Pius IX. More information at WDTPRS

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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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Święcone - blessing of Easter food

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The blessing of meat, eggs and bread at the end of Lent is a Catholic tradition that has been preserved by the Polish people. A Polish family in my parish asked to bless their baskets of food (containing these items) on Holy Saturday so I arranged to do so at 11am, letting others know also. Above you can see a basket ( Święcone ) that was prepared as a gift for me. When I was asked to do this blessing by another Polish family a couple of years ago, I was intrigued to find that in my 1860 copy of the Roman Ritual ( above ), there is, precisely, a blessing of lamb, eggs and bread for Holy Saturday. This convinced me that the devotion kept by the Poles must have been something more widely practised in past centuries. The immediate explanation might be that this is the blessing of food at the end of the Lenten fast. It must be more than that. People would have abstained from meat, and from lacticinia (including eggs) but not from bread. Perhaps there is a more specifically eucharis
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Beachy Head and Lewes

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We did manage to visit Beachy Head yesterday on the way over to Shoreham-on-Sea. It was a good blustery English summer's day which added to the experience of walking near the edge of the highest coastal chalk cliff in Britain. Above is one of the photos I took. I might get a chance to stitch together a YouTube video about the site. Fr Sean Finnegan (of the Valle Adurni blog) was, as ever, a magnificent host, not only setting us up for our Masses but also giving us an excellent lunch. He has posted an amusing lament on the subject of his Church: Oh Lord! A prayer . Today, we took the train to Lewes to visit Fr Richard Biggerstaff at the parish of St Pancras. Fr Jonathan Martin is staying with him during the summer. Below, you can see the fine Church; thankfully, the Ditchling altar has survived various phases of "re-ordering". I realised today that I love serving Mass in the usus antiquior as well as saying it. I served Fr Briggs' Mass after saying my own and tried t
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SPUC Clergy information day

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SPUC today held a Clergy Information Day. Unfortunately, because of an urgent meeting I had to be late for this so I missed the first half of the morning lecture by Fr John Fleming. I could catch up with most of it from his notes and look forward to the published version when it is available from SPUC. Fr Fleming was speaking about the rights of the unborn under international law, the pro-life battle at the UN and the nature of the early human embryo. As a lecture, it was certainly not "dumbed down". He presented some of the latest research on the biochemistry of the human embryo in relationship with the mother and then tied this in to the philosophical question of the status of the embryo, dealing with such hoary chestnuts as twinning and the differentiation of cells in the embryo. It was a most helpful and informative presentation: intellectually challenging but well put together. I think that the sheer quality of these presentations has been the important factor in the gr
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When people walk away with Holy Communion

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