The times they are a-changin’

Well I’m still on cloud 9 about yesterday.

A few things I forgot to mention were, the event hardly got advertised at all, if it had we might have filled York minster. There were very few from York because most of the local priests had refused to advertise it in their parishes due to an acute case of woolly liberalism (which actually turns into fascism when feeling threatened) They couldn’t tell their parishioners about it and give them a free choice to vote with their feet, noooo better to make sure nobody finds out and then say there is nobody calling for mass in the extraordinary form.

I heard a story of a priest who only found out about it at the last minute and was a bit miffed because he would have been sat in choir in his full regalia had he known in advance.  News of the event was spread almost purely by word of mouth and by the internet, in fact I probably wouldn’t have gone unless I knew two friends attending who are both well connected online.

I’d like to congratulate the brave priests who did tell their congregations about this event, and encourage them as Chesterton once remarked only living fish can swim against the stream.

Damien Thompson’s news was also doing the rounds accompanied by a rather enjoyable smugness, perhaps we are seeing the beginning of the beginning of the end of protestantism as held by some in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in England and Wales? Maybe I’m just getting carried away.

Aaaah its a joy to be Catholic, we do live in interesting times. In fact I feel that the times they are a-changing.

Another nail in the coffin of the reformation

Well, crikey o’rielly, what a day. I just got back from York from one of the most jaw-dropping Catholic events ever. Sung extraordinary form Mass in York minster in honour of the feast of St Margaret Clitherow. I’d say it was just as remarkable as the Cofton Park Mass during the Papal visit.

The LMS had estimated there would be 200 to 400 attendees, there were well over 700 of us. At communion they ran out of the body of Christ and had to turn a goodly number away even though only two thirds or so went to receive.

Our contingent turned up 10 to 15 minutes before the start of mass and by that stage the choir of york minster was already standing room only, there were york minster ushers running around with extra chairs but the congregation filled a none too shabby portion of the nave too, york minster being one of the biggest Church’s in Europe.

Due to turning up relatively late I luckily managed to grab a temporary seat right between the two sections of the choir, the really rather good Rudgate Singers, so I had Byrd’s mass setting for five voices in perfect stereo sound, and it was STUNNING.

Fr Stephen Maughan was also on top form both at the Altar and in the Pulpit, though if you know him well you know that’s guaranteed if you see his name at the top of the bill. I just hope to God his career in the Church isn’t hampered by being so wonderfully Catholic but I don’t want to jinx his chances by indulging fantasies of the ascendancy of orthodoxy on that point.

Margaret Clitherow was perhaps one of the bravest martyrs who ever lived, refusing to plead to the charge of sheltering priests so her children wouldn’t have to testify at a trial (and potentially implicate themselves) she was thus  given the  punishment of being crushed to death. A death so horrific that not even stony face executioners had the barbarity to carry the sentence out, they had to hire some beggars to do it for them, and on Good Friday of all days.

So then, an extraordinary form mass, in a now Anglican minster, in honour of a Catholic Martyr and Saint of the reformation. Ecumenism is an interesting thing is it not? It was truly wonderful to bring Catholicism back to a building built by Catholic hands, hats off to the dean of chapter for such a great gesture of friendship towards us Papists. But being there the contradiction of what we believe as Catholics juxtaposed with the knowledge of the Anglican ownership of that building brought some subversive thoughts into my mind.

Thoughts like, How could you possibly remain Anglican for one second knowing that your denomination exists because of martyrdom such as this? How could you remain Anglican and know the beauty of the ‘old rite’ only exists in the Catholic Church? How could you remain Anglican and know that for no good reason you have cut yourself away from the ancient belief of the Church in the Holy Mass? a belief Christians throughout the ages have willingly given their lives for.

Anyway, we processed through York, which was quite a spectacle, suddenly around 500 or so Catholics appeared traipsing through the shambles of York with a gaggle of Clergy at the front praying the rosary (unfortunately we couldn’t hear a word of the rosary because we were in the middle of the procession.)

Things I noticed as we passed by were, firstly the buskers, one who played the lord is my shepherd on his piano, and the guitar band who played sunday bloody sunday as we passed by Ann Summers of all places.

There were a group of kids who; when one of them saw the clergymen said to the rest; “hey there’s this weird group of people in white saying really weird stuff, lets go and check it out” and they ran to the front of the procession to see what was going on.

There was a man who looked rather rough around the edges, who may well have been homeless, who genuflected for the whole lot of us, with his dog barking like crazy beside him.

As we arrived at English Martyrs’ Church York for benediction we heartily sang a Salve followed by benediction with the O Salutaris and Tantem Ergo by Thurlow Weed, and adoremus in aeternum by Gregorio Allegri, all three of which were understated and achingly beautiful.

Benediction also included the prayer for England which was heartily boomed out by one and all, followed by veneration of the relic St Margaret’s hand. During the veneration of the relic faith of our fathers, god of mercy and compassion and lord Jesus think on me were sung from memory. Faith of my fathers always makes me emotional. Being a convert I can’t help but think of my family. Then the final liturgical note we had the Laudes Regiae to hammer home Christ’s kingship and victory, perhaps  even over the travesty that was the protestant rebellion.

Lastly we had tea coffee and biscuits in the parish hall, and the hardy few who had stayed to this point relaxed knowing we were in the company of friends and like minded full blooded recusants.

I get frustrated when Bishops rest on the laurels of the Papal visit (something they didn’t really have much to with its success) when they could be doing the work of the apostles bringing about Catholic events to match it in beauty and significance, just like this one.  It is left to the LMS to boldly go where Bishops fear to tread, hats off to all involved.

Putting the world to rights?

Well not a great deal has changed in the last few weeks. I haven’t been posting because I haven’t been able to think of one good thing that’s going on in the world… Italy successfully appealed the crucifix in classroom ban… wow big news.

And at long last the UN and Nato have stopped wringing there hands over Libya and have intervened on the side of freedom, about a week too late, but better late than never. Although we did witness the absurd spectacle of Tornado GR4′s flying to Libya from the UK… an aircraft carrier would be mighty handy right about now would it not Mr Cameron?

Already people are circling the anti-war wagons saying this is pointless (which it isn’t) or that we don’t know how it will end (well surely getting rid of Gaddafi is the objective even if it doesn’t say it in the UN resolution) or that we don’t know who will replace the ‘dear leader’ (well no we don’t but you can’t know everything) but we should arm the ‘rebels’ if only in the interests of making an underdog into a fair fight. I hate to break it to the peaceniks but sometimes moral behaviour requires that we take sides in a conflict, to do nothing is to endorse evil.

Of course the problem then arises what about Syria? we can’t go in there because its too near to Iraq geographically and Iran politically. The chances of an Islamic fundamentalist regime popping up right next to Israel are too high… we can’t go into a lot of these counties with a sign saying we will support all popular uprisings, as a sort of revolutionary rent a mob, much as we’d like to, but we can in Libya so we have. People are already saying its oil motivated and Vladimir Putin called it a crusade and even his puppet prime minister rebuked him.

Onto the topic of the middle east almost a whole family including three very young children were brutally (and I mean horrifically) murdered in Israel and Hamas threw a celebration. We need to know what we are talking about when we support a Palestinian cause for a state of their own, Hamas should have absolutely no place in it.

While we are at it someone should remind the BBC that Israel is the only free democratic state in the region surrounded by enemies and it doesn’t deliberately target civilians whereas its enemies  do. If you think that is a controversial thing to say then ask yourself, who is telling you otherwise?

Anyway yes there is nothing I can do about the world going to hell in a hand basket. Talking of which isn’t it depressing when you meet someone who is, if they remain on their current course, going to hell.

I’ve been playing black ops online with xbox live, with no hint of irony some of the casual racism and antisemitism muttered online by some individuals was gob-smacking.  I just end up feeling sorry for the culprits because they are clearly damned unless they repent, which will take a road to Damascus type of miracle.

Anyway yes, a lack of religious coverage this week, I did send an email to my sister trying to convince her as to the Catholic Church’s teaching on a male priesthood but to reproduce it here is preaching to the choir.  The subject is a bit of a moot one for Catholics because I hate to break it to people who think otherwise but the Church will never change its teaching.

Hopefully the next post won’t be so long in the future as this one was since the last.

Antisemitism

Soo then it seems to be one of the topics flying around at the moment.

According to the world, the Pope and the Catholic Church have only just come out against antisemitism.

The idea that the Jesus was Jewish, that the entirety of the early Church was was at one stage Jewish seems to have somehow slipped peoples minds.

The origional good Friday prayer for the Jews stipulates that it is praying only for Jews who don’t yet believe in Christ to convert and if you ask me that is far less racist than simply praying for the Jews as an entire race which the later attempts at political correctness gradually moved towards.

The Catholic Church has always tolerated the Jews since it believed it was up to God to convert them at the last judgment and therefore it was not right to persecute the Jews. That some murderers who happened to be Catholic didn’t get the memo was truly tragic and they were always condemned by the Church.

In fact the Christian belief that you should not convert people by the sword is at the root of all western notions of toleration, alas it never stopped some from trying. Unfortunately this historic opposition to antisemitism is always forgotten by the historically illiterate people of every passing age so the Church has to constantly re-teach what has always been its teaching.

Oh and can someone point out to the powers that be in the media that Libya is NOT IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

Well, another year gone.

Well here we are, its lent again on Wednesday and I recently celebrated my birthday (by trying in vain to completely ignore the fact that I’m a year older and I’ve got nothing to show for it but getting ever so slightly uglier)

So then the Sunday readings were an interesting mixed bag wern’t they? in fact they are almost totally and deliberately contradictory, in the first reading God demands the Jews follow the law.

The second reading is basically justification by faith alone in a nutshell…

The Gospel was interesting too, Jesus saying you could be quite the religious high achiever and still be evil… so doing the will of the father is about what is in our hearts not on a checklist of spiritual boasts. Yet we are still supposed to be trying to do the will of God. Tricky that.

Isn’t some of our faith in this life saying ‘Lord, lord’? it surely has to be, I know how weak I am and my spiritual achievements haven’t moved on much at all since the day I converted to Catholicism 6 years or so ago (in fact I’ve probably just become more accepting of my faults)…

I should be able to levitate by now surely! ho hum, hopefully that is the point Jesus is making and perhaps Jesus’ warning against spiritual pride is to cheer us low achievers up. Perhaps the circular wanderings of our lives are all that God is really intersted in? it doesn’t matter if we don’t get anywhere in this life so long as we go there with God? Perhaps that is ascedia/sloth speaking but the alternative is more depressing.

So then, the lenten fast, what to do? I could job hunt, I could join a gym, I could stop eating junk food, I could fail to give up the sauce… all worldly things really, none of which are bad in and of themselves, but I can’t help but think I’d be missing the point of Lent… perhaps some kind of prayer discipline might be in order instead and I’ll just have to live with being a generously proportioned heavy drinker in a dead end job.

On a different note my avoidance tactics have turned to books… I visited my parents and stocked up, a couple of history books, 1984 and the Iliad, the latter of which is a rip roaring read, good to know that Human nature doesn’t really change in thousands of years.

Its a sick sad world.

So anyway, I’ve just finished my bi-yearly West Wing marathon and I should get back to my neglected blog…

If the prose is less flowing I blame it on my new keyboard, its a Logitech and it just doesn’t have the same rhythm and feel as my last one which was a cheap and cheerful yet surprisingly good Technika. It had a much more soft, supple and smooth typing action, well, till I spilt Guinness on it and the return and backspace buttons got stuck in the down position…

Anyway it seems the world is stuck in its rather grim position in Libya, I don’t know what Catholic morality would suggest, but I think we should send in an elite sniper team and simply assassinate every dictator in the world and be done with it. Its far more generous than what they deserve which is a long drop, a short rope and a five minute hemp fandango.

People who have embraced their evil fallen nature to such an extent only fear one thing, death, either they believe in no afterlife or some may have an inkling of the judgement from God which awaits them.

To do nothing at all to militarily aid civilian populations against vicious oppressors is cowardice, we don’t have to go into a lengthy occupation or nation building like Tony Blair always seemed so keen on, we just need to knock over the evil regime and let the people of Libya work it out for themselves, if another evil regime pops up we just do the same again.

Interestingly though, where would you draw the line? what about Saudi Arabia or China?

Anyway what about the rapidly increasingly fascist state in the UK? a Christian couple have been prevented from fostering children because they are Christian… there is no way around that.  The right to be a happy homosexual child of 6 outweighs the right for people to hold religious views at all.

Erm I hate to break it to you judge but 6 to 10s are far more homophobic than their parents will ever be, the desire to be ‘normal’ amongst children is incredibly powerful. I also very much doubt as parents they would have punished/abused or shunned a child who did grow up to be gay, but the Judge has decided they shouldn’t be given the chance to raise a child with Christian values.

So what’s next, homosexuality lessons in classes where for the good of society, and obviously to curb the worlds evil over population problem, everyone will be encouraged to bat for the other team?

This brings me to a bit of the Mass that annoyed me this last Sunday… the prayer before the intercessions was as far as I could tell, simply wrong.  It said as best as I can remember, God is in control of worldly events, erm hold on there, that needs a lot of qualification if it is to be anywhere approaching true.

This world is ruled by the devil, didn’t Jesus basically tell us this? God is only the lord of worldly events in an eschatological sense, in the end, Gods justice, God’s vengence even, will be perfect. God will not protect us all from the evils of this world, we have to look first to the kingdom of God and his righteousness first before all these things will be added unto you…

Its funny, in the Gospel Jesus essentially tells a lie of omission, most of his disciples died horrible martyrdom’s. Sure God did look after their day to day needs, right up until their pursuit of God’s Kingdom and righteousness brought them to their executioners.

Ok this is all getting a little bit grim, but I guess the message is that if  we are going to deal with all the problems of this world and its master the devil, then we need to be willing to fight the good fight, run the race to the end, no matter the cost, even if it means being in conflict with our own country’s ever more atheist laws.