Looking and loving

Don Marco has a particularly wonderful meditation on a painting of Christ crucified with Saints Francis, Benedict, and Romuald. I do not presume to place myself alongside dear Father Marco, but must admit I do enjoy walking around art galleries in order to look at Christian art and then meditating on what they can say to us. Enjoy!

Feast of the Sacred Heart

I wish you all a very Holy and Happy feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord is something in need of revival, and is given highly informative raise from the Servant of God Pius XII in his encyclical Haurietis Aquas, which I recommend heartily.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

The foundation of Faith, Hope, and Charity

Blessed be the holy Trinity and undivided unity: we will give glory to Him, because He hath shown his mercy to us.

I wish you all a very Holy and Happy Feast of the Most Holy Trinity tomorrow. If you think that you already know all there is to know about this mystery (or not), then it will be of no small benefit to read this excellent article.

The need to rejoice

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting a series of brief meditations on the need for Catholics to rejoice. We are living in a world which is troubled because so many people have refused to listen to God. The consequence of separation from God, Whom is Love, is unhappiness. This unhappiness is manifest in many ways: violence, lack of respect, and distrust-to name but a few. It is very easy to be down-hearted about the state of the world, but we must never let this affect our trust in God. Look at a depiction of the Crucifixion, and the love of God for a fallen race is shown. Look at the condemned thief turning to the sinless Word dying for sin and turning to the dying Son of God to plead for help, and the grace of God to a sinner is shown. Monsignor Gilbey pointed out that we should thank God daily for sending His Son into the world to redeem us, and that I think that is an ideal place to begin to realise that we have something to be thankful for.

150th Post!

Dear readers,
Once again, I apologise for the lack of posting. I am afraid that I have nothing special to write about, as I have not been following events on the blogosphere lately.
As this post is the 150th since I launched the blog in January, it would be nice to write a special post, but circumstances have not allowed this. I am considering a temporary hibernation from this blog, or possibly a complete break, but have decided nothing yet.
God bless you all, and I wish you all a happy feast of the Ascension of Our Lord for tomorrow.

St Catherine of Siena

The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honour of God and the salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself for a certain space of time, in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge, in order to know better the goodness of God towards her. This she does because knowledge must precede love, and only when she has attained love, can she strive to follow and to clothe herself with the truth.

Thus begins the Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena with God the Father. St Catherine is undoubtedly one of the most eminently holy children of the Church, as well as one of my favourite saints. Gueranger writes: From the very commencement, there was something heavenly about this admirable servant of God, which we fancy existing in an angel who had been sent from heaven to live in a human body.

For such a lovely saint, it is entirely appropriate that the 'secret' prayer of the Roman rite should be so marvellous:

In the virginal fragrance of the virutes of blessed Catherine, whose feast-day we are are keeping, together with the saving victim to be laid upon Thine altar, may our prayers, O Lord, mount on high to thee. Through Christ our Lord.

Happy Feast Day!

Be nice to Auntie Beeb!

For those of you who do not know it, "Auntie Beeb" was an epithet used not so long ago to describe the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Now most of use are aware that in recent years Auntie Beeb has not exactly been kind, polite, or considerate towards the Catholic Church. In fact, Auntie has been downright rude, virulent, and bad-mannered towards the Church (to put it as mildly as possible) on several recent occassions. It was with some surprise then, that I came across this article entitled Concern over Pope's Latin Mass move (thanks to Rorate Coeli). My first concern was: why on earth would the BBC care about the possibility of removing restrictions on what Father Faber called "The most beautiful thing this side of Heaven"? And then I realised: They intend to put across the worst spin possible in order to confuse those who don't know what the fuss is about. I am rather too tired to go and point out the laughable errors, so please enjoy-especially the very good comment by a Protestant about Catholics following the Bible!