Commentarius Rinnuccinianus

The Commentarius is a major source of information on 17th Century Irish, British and European politics and history. You can check out the music of the time here

Sacred Heart Cope close-up

Cope with Image of the Sacred Heart

Said Cope (see below)

New Chalice for School Oratory

Up till recently I have used a pottery chalice and paten for Mass in the school where I work (that's all we had and there was no cash that I know of to buy another one and none to spare elsewhere either) and I can hear, with that admission, the howls of the lay liturgo-police. I have wanted more precious vessels for a while. Well, the Lord provides. Last weekend I walked into our sacristy, on the way to hear confessions, to find one of our postulants engaged in cleaning out. In the process I gained a simple, modern gilded chalice and paten, some spare corporals, amices etc and a cope. Yes, you read the last bit right, a cope. We already have a splendid cope - enough for our uses so I volunteered to find a home for this one. I attach a pic of the same with a close-up of the embroidered back. It needs a good clean and some small repair to the hem.

Sin, Repentance and Lent

I guess it's easy to fall out of the habit of blogging. But I will try to keep it up. My thoughts are on sin at the moment. I frequently tell people in the confessional that what we call our sins are but the symptoms of a deeper illness - the effects of our fall. At heart each of us is deluded by the illusion that one is the centre of the universe and that everyone else (God included) ought to orbit about oneself and do as one wants, when one wants, as one wants etc. Since we all suffer from this, sin, conflict and suffering inevitably follow. Out of our disordered hearts the passions flow and our 'sins' are the obvious ends of deeper issues. Lent then is a chance to pay attention to ourselves not in the sense of pampering but to notice our truer, deeper motivations. It is these that also need to be brought to the confessional for healing and it is this healing that leads to Lent being called a joyful season. The Lord is zealous for our cleansing, to turn us into not just 'houses of God' but living tabernacless, His Body in the world. In the joyful sorrow of repentance we step towards the Kingdom that is established at Easter.

William Byrd to lift your spirit in Lent

Found this at the New Liturgical Movement's website. Enjoy.

First Sunday of Lent

The icon is from Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Ohio.
Unlike some I have not given up blogging for Lent but I was more than a little distracted. So Lent is here. I find it interesting that one of the Lenten prefaces calls this season joyful. What's joyful about giving things up? What's joyful about hunger? At the moment I'm reading Bernard Cornwell's Sword Song (set in the England of King Alfred) and I'm surprised by the level of anti-Christian sentiment it holds. The Christian (read Catholic) faith is presented as joyless, dour, legalistic and oppressive in contrast to the humane paganism that surrounds it. That I think says at lot more about Cornwell's vision than the mindset of an ancient pagan. He's not alone. Perhaps too often we have sold our faith as what we do not do rather than what we do. It strikes me that the three remedies proposed for sin: prayer, fasting and abstinence, and alms-giving cover both the 'negative' and 'positive' dimensions of the Lenten season. On the negative there is what we give up or deny ourselves, cut back on or reduce. This negation makes space in our lives for the Lord and for our neighbour. Into this space we can put our energies - the 'positive'- by not just giving cash but also giving time, effort, care, love. One without the other will not work. What point is our fasting if our love reaches out to no one? How can one reach out if one does not create the space, the time? Where will the will for all this come from without prayer for without God's help we can do nothing. It's our inability to do what is right that brings us to that other dimension of Lent: confession. The struggle to do better, to pray more, to give more, to give things up, often brings up our darker side: the illusion that each of us is the centre of the universe. Our passions surface in the struggle and they do so as sin. In the space created by fasting we can pay attention to that brokenness and bring it to the Lord to be healed in the sacrament. After all our Lord Himself fell three times so we should not expect an easy time of it. We can think of sin as the symptom of an illness - the fall - that Christ our doctor and our remedy has come not only to heal but to eliminate entirely - in Irish 'saviour' is rendered as 'health-giver'.