A Special Saint . . .

Several people have commented on Pope Benedict's recent remarks encouraging us all to develop a devotion to a particular saint.

I've often heard people mention that they have a devotion to a particular saint and I've always thought to myself, 'but how do you choose just one?!'

The Holy Father suggests perhaps taking our example from the saint that we are named after. A bit difficult in my case as my first name is a 'real pagan name' as my mother once remarked (why on earth did she agree to it then, I wonder?). In her defence, she did give me the best of all saints' names as a middle name - yes, you guessed it, even in our non-Catholic school, there were still quite a few girls called Mary, and more who had Mary as a second name.

Well, I would hope we all have a special devotion to Mary; so then I think maybe I should look to the Saint whose feast day falls on my birthday. In my case it's two saints - Saint Simon and Saint Jude, so I've decided to find out a bit more about them.

All I know about them really is that Simon was called 'The Zealot' and Jude is sometimes referred to as Thaddeus. Of course, we all know St Jude is the saint of desperate causes, the saint of last-resort.

They were both martyred; Simon in Persia and Jude in Armenia, although some writers say they were both martyred in Persia or that Jude died peacefully elsewhere.

One little snippet I read today says Simon was born in Cana and some accounts say he was the bridegroom at the Wedding at Cana. I'd like to think that was true.

O God, we thank you
for the glorious company of the apostles,

and especially for Simon and Jude;

and we pray that, as they were faithful

and zealous in their mission,

so we may with ardent devotion

make known the love and mercy

of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,

who lives and reigns with you

and the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Footnote:

I've always had great regard for Saint Monica, whose feast day we celebrate today. As a mother, I think we can all identify with her frustration with her wayward son, St Augustine. Most parents would agree that even the best of children 'have their moments' and most of us will have shed a few tears over our offspring at some time or another but what a shining example of perseverance St Monica is to us all - it may have taken 17 years but she got there in the end! And the moral of the story is . . . keep praying and never give up.

A bit of light relief - some real 'groaners' for lexophiles . . .

I've mentioned before that I've always been interested in language in one way or another. I know it's not Friday yet but I couldn't resist sharing these real 'groaners' forwarded by Fr Leo.

I challenge anyone to read the whole list without at least one tiny groan escaping from their lips!

You can tune a piano, but you can't tuna fish.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

Police were called to a day care centre where a 3-yr-old was resisting a rest.

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.

To write with a broken pencil is pointless.

The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

A thief who stole a calendar got 12 months.

A thief fell & broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.

The dead batteries were given out free of charge.

A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

A will is a dead giveaway.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

A backward poet writes inverse.

That was part one, and more than enough for most people, I would imagine . . . real gluttons for punishment can scroll down for part two;

In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

A chicken crossing the road, poultry in motion.

If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft & I'll show you A-flat miner.

The guy who fell onto an upholstery machine was fully recovered.

A grenade that fell onto a kitchen floor in France resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

A calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory which was never developed.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When you've seen one shopping centre, you've seen a mall.

When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture: A jab well done

Religious doctors may allow their faith to influence care of terminally ill - I should hope so! . . .

Some days, or weeks even, I don't seem to do, hear or see anything that I particularly want to blog about but today, I seem to be spoilt for choice. To mention just a few of the items that I thought I might comment on; we have the 100th birthday celebrations of Mother Teresa, the memorial of the Passionist Priest, Blessed Dominic of the Mother of God, the birth of David and Samantha Cameron's daughter, and even the fantastic result in the Spurs Champions League match last night!

But, no, what caught my attention primarily was an item on the BBC News website about the possible influence of faith on doctors in their care of the terminally ill. I would have expected it to be a factor and was surprised that it should be considered 'news' or a surprise to many people.

"Doctors with religious beliefs are less likely to take decisions which could hasten the death of those who are terminally ill . . ." according to a study of nearly 4,000 doctors by London University. Well, good for them!

The article contains some interesting statistics too such as;

"More than 12% of the doctors surveyed described themselves as very or extremely religious, compared with just over 6% of the UK general population . . . However one in five described themselves as very or extremely non-religious, slightly higher than the general population."

"Specialists in the care of the elderly were more likely to be Hindu or Muslim than other doctors, while palliative care doctors were slightly more likely to be white and Christian."

An interesting article and worth a further look here.

Feast of St Bartholomew . . .

The day's nearly over but I did want to just put down a few of my thoughts on today's feast day.

Although, strictly speaking, it wasn't anything to do with St Bartholomew in particular that struck me at Mass this morning but the First Reading which was taken from the Book of the Apocalypse.

Like many of our saints, you get a line or two in the Missal which includes something like, 'little is known for certain about St . . . '

He was born at Cana and brought by the Apostle Philip to meet Jesus. He is usually identified with Nathanael which is presumably why we have the Gospel reading today from John which mentions Nathanael's meeting with Jesus.

No, what I wanted to mention was my reaction to the First Reading. What amazing descriptive passages we hear from the author. The imagery is so vivid and so detailed you can really imagine this 'City of the Lamb' that is being described.

I searched hard to find some good illustrations and I do like the one at the top of this post as it has that ethereal quality that belongs to a vision or a revelation.

¿Habla usted español? . . .

Regular readers of this little blog, and of course family and friends, will know that the Pater Familias travels a little bit - at this stage, the aforementioned family and friends will be spluttering into their cocoa at my use of the phrase, 'travels a little'.

The latest trip was to the beautiful city of Barcelona (hence the title of the post - d'oh!).

Over the years, we have come to an understanding that I really don't need a gift from each port of call - there are only so many hand-crafted 'greetings from . . . (insert the destination of your choice)' trinket boxes/teatowels/plastic gl0w-in-the-dark statues of Our Lady/garishly-painted whatnots that one can find house room for.

We have hit on a good solution which suits us both. The PF nowadays picks up one or two of the complimentary glossy magazines offered by the airlines and purchases a little edible something that is typical of the place he has visited. Thereby he feels he's doing his bit by thinking of me and bringing a gift back with him and I have gifts that I enjoy and can share and don't need to find a permanent home for. Everyone's a winner!

I have to say my Spanish is very limited but women's magazines are pretty universal and as so much of them is pictures anyway, it doesn't really matter and it's always amusing to see how certain words and products are translated into different languages.

The edible delight this trip was a filling-extracting box of delicious Turrón (Spanish), torró (Catalan), or torrone (Italian).

Sorry, no photo of that - there's not enough left to photograph!

The next trip will probably bring a booty of censored OK magazines and dates - I'll leave you to guess which part of the world that might be.

One million copies of Papal Liturgies published . . .

I'm sure you've all see the item on the Papal Visit web site about the publication of one million copies of the booklet for parishes containing the texts for the public liturgies during the Papal Visit. The booklet has been published by the Bishops' Conference in conjunction with Gabriel Communications and Magnificat.

What interested me particularly was this note at the end of the news item,

"With this special issue for the Papal Visit, and beginning on a monthly basis in November, it is available for the first time with readings, texts and calendar appropriate for the British Isles."

Hooray! I don't know about other bloggers in England and Wales, but one of my pet peeves (I must admit, I do have few . . . ) is that there are so many marvellous resources 'out there' but nearly always you find the texts are those used by the USCCB.

I really like the convenience of iBreviary, iMissal etc. on my iPhone but I do wish that the texts of the prayers, psalms and so forth were the same as the ones that I am familiar with and have grown to love. I know it's only minor differences but it really grates to be saying, for example,

'Lord, now you let your servant go in peace . . ' as the opening line of the Nunc Dimittis rather than the familiar, 'At last, all-powerful Master . . . '

I have used the Magnificat booklet when on holiday in France and found it very helpful. When the introduction of the English version was heralded a while ago, I eagerly looked at the first edition thinking how useful it would be for people who didn't have their own Missal or Breviary but was disappointed to find it wasn't using the texts for England and Wales so would be quite confusing for parishioners trying to use it to follow public prayer such as Morning Prayer which we say before Mass every weekday in our parish.

I look forward to seeing the new and revised edition in November.

Are we the first? . . .

I got home from work today to find this on the doormat . . .

. . . Our first Christmas card catalogue.

Well it is August, after all! To some people this may even be a trifle late for them. I know some people like to do their Christmas shopping in the January sales and have everything wrapped, labelled and stored in a cupboard before the end of February. Where's the fun in that?

I refuse to hear the 'C' word in our house before the beginning of Advent. Of course, that means I do have the usual stress of trying to get all the cards written, presents wrapped , food bought and tree decorated in a mad panic at the last minute but then it wouldn't be Christmas without a near nervous breakdown in the third week of December, would it?

An amazing video about an amazing young man . . .

I saw this on a young relative's Facebook. I think it deserves to be shared.

Just musin' . . .

Firstly, apologies both for the lateness of yesterday's posting and its length.

I think it should really have been two separate posts but I was having such a battle with our Internet connection that I was just relieved to be able to finally publish it!

In between waiting for the router to decide to connect us with the Internet and pulling my hair out, I began thinking about blogging in general.

Why do I blog and who is it for? . . . I think the answer is really that I do it for myself.

I began this blog as a sort of online diary mainly aimed at family living overseas as we have a lot of family spread over different continents. As some of them found it difficult to cope with the password system I had set up to keep the blog fairly private, I decided to 'go public' as it was the only way they could read it. This changed the nature of the blog somewhat as I am not comfortable posting photos of our family that are open to all or writing about them in ways that would easily identify them. (I should add, members of our family were themselves also not happy about this).

Gradually, the blog seemed to take on a life of its own and I found myself talking about my faith and referring to parish events or the Catholic Church in general. I have never pretended that this is a serious Catholic blog. If you like, you could say it is a Catholic blog, merely because the author is a practising Catholic.

Sometimes, however, I have found myself discarding a topic that I was going to blog about in case someone disapproved of it, or even feeling that I really ought to write a few lines about something that would be particularly relevant to Catholic readers. I don't want to feel under any pressure to either write or not write in a particular way so I think what I'm trying to say is . . .

This is my blog and it reflects who I am. If you like to read it, great but if you don't think it's serious enough; is too serious; is too miscellaneous in content; is not Catholic enough or is too Catholic for your taste then that's fine too.

I won't be offended if I am removed from anybody's blog roll. I'll continue to read blogs that interest me and comment when I have something to say.

Well, I'm glad I got that off my chest.

A Feast Day and a Fun Day . . .

I'm firmly of the opinion that Feast Days should be celebrated - and I don't just mean at Mass and in church.

Today's Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a beautiful feast and to celebrate we had a beautiful Mass in the parish with choir and organ too, which is unusual during August but very appropriate and much appreciated.

I still think of myself as a 'new Catholic' even though I was received into the Church over 20 years ago. I'm learning all the time about my faith and every now and again, another piece of the jigsaw falls into place and a little more of the picture is revealed.

I find Feast Days help very much with this process, and gradually I'm beginning to understand more of the dogma and doctrine of the faith. Like other ways of learning, repetition of the same story and explanations from different sources all combine to add my understanding.

I'm learning; not just by listening to the homily at Mass but also by reading, and that reading includes the blogosphere, I am beginning to 'get' the Feast of the Assumption.

I'd always tended to think of Feast Days in isolation but I'm also beginning to realise that sometimes they're connected. Like today's feast and that of the Immaculate Conception. Now I see that of course they're related. It's because Our Lady was conceived without sin that she couldn't possible suffer the corruption of death that the rest of us with our original sin, and ongoing sin, have to undergo.

Ah, well, I've a lot yet to learn and understand, I know . . .

“Blessed is she who trusted that the Lord’s words to her would be fulfilled.”

For Christians, death is not extinction, though, unlike Mary, all ordinary mortals, even the most faithful Christians, the saints, must await the Second Coming of Christ and the general Resurrection to receive our “glorified bodies”.

‘May we see heaven as our goal and come to share her glory’.

Read more at Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary

After Mass we continued the celebration by going out for lunch and we decided to visit Chartwell in Kent and sample the fare in their excellent restaurant.

The Pater Familias and I hadn't visited for over a year and 'Our Eldest' has never been and I had a feeling it would be 'right up his street'. (I was right, but then Mum's usually are!)

A larger-than-life statue of Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill. Churchill in his famous 'siren suit'.

The studio in the grounds where Sir Winston Churchill did a lot of his painting. His paintings are also very much in evidence in the main house.

Well, it's one way to pass the time in the Car Wash . . .

I just saw this on Twitter, thanks to @MatthewWarner. It's certainly a novel background for catechesis!

Catholic Car Wash is another enterprise by the creator of LOLSaints. As it says on his web site,

'Catholic Car Wash is a video podcast for Catholics by Jeff Geerling. All videos are recorded while inside a car wash. That is all.'

Click on the photo below for the link to the video. (Sorry, I couldn't find the embed code anywhere.)

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross . . .

Today is the Feast of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), Virgin and Martyr and a Patron of Europe.

If you'd like to know a bit more about her life or be reminded if you are familiar with it already, this video gives an excellent summary.

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.

The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church. St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Saint Teresa Benedicta,
holy martyr, philosopher of truth,
defender of the human person
against the evils of this age,
enlighten our minds, illumine our hearts,
fill our lives with the passion
of your love for the Cross.
Amen.

A Sunday afternoon walk . . .

I'm sure we all know places that we pass regularly in the car; on the train or the bus and say to ourselves, 'I wonder what's behind that wall/fence/hedge? It looks interesting and one day I'm going to take time to explore and find out.'

Today we did just that. After a tasty lunch in the town, we walked up Tunnel Road towards Reigate Castle. The castle in question was a Norman castle, long since in ruins but there are earth works still there and extensive caves which belonged to the original castle that unfortunately weren't open today.

This 'modern' castle gate which is the entrance to the rose garden was built in the 18th Century.

You can see why the common name for this cotinus is 'the smoke bush'. Very aptly named.


No, not a relic left behind by visiting Egyptians, or even New Age travellers, this pyramid in the middle of the rose garden covers the entry to a sallyport (yes, I had to look that one up too!).

The area is well known for it's flora. It's lovely to see bullrushes at the margins of the water; and of course . . . you can't have a Sunday afternoon walk without ducks . . .

All in all, a lovely Sunday afternoon stroll.

Normal service has been resumed . . .

I'm glad to see things are back to normal . . . Saturday afternoon and I'm tackling a pile of ironing, listening to Five Live Sport on the radio and watching the rain out of the window - happy days!

Please don't think I'm complaining. I'm still really enjoying the novelty of rain! And, what's to complain about when I'm snug and dry indoors looking out at the garden suddenly springing to life again.

Funny how the beginning of the football season coincides with almost the first bit of rain for weeks and weeks (at least in this part of the country).

Non-Words . . .

I've always been interested in words and language. Foreign languages, slang, dialect, quirky words, origins of words, philology, linguistics etc.

I am very grateful to @Londiniensis on Twitter for his tweet on a recent article in the Telegraph about the ''Non-Words' that are stored in a vault at Oxford English Press. These are words that have been submitted for use in the OED but haven't made it yet. They are kept dormant lest they come into common usage at some time in the future in which case they would be included in a later edition.

The article includes a long list of non-words. Here are a few of my favourites:

Dringle – the watermark left on wood caused by a glass of liquid.

Espacular – something especially spectacular

Furgle – to feel in a pocket or bag for a small object such as a coin or key

Lexpionage – the sleuthing of words and phrases

Museum head – feeling mentally exhausted and no longer able to take in information; Usually following a trip to a museum

Nonversation – a worthless conversation, wherein nothing is explained or otherwise Elaborated upon

Optotoxical – a look that could kill, normally from a parent or spouse

Peppier – a waiter whose sole job is to offer diners ground pepper, usually from a large pepper mill

Percuperate – to prepare for the possibility of being ill

Polkadodge – the dance that occurs when two people attempt to pass each other but move in the same direction

Scrax – the waxy coating that is scratched off an instant lottery ticket

Vidiot – someone who is inept at the act of programming video recording equipment

Whinese – a term for the language spoken by children on lengthy trips

Wibble – the trembling of the lower lip just shy of actually crying

Xenolexica – a grave confusion when faced with unusual words

I can actually hear myself using some of these.

Painting by numbers . . .

Just in case anyone should get the idea that I'm some sort of Holy Joe (Joanna? . . . I'm not quite sure what the feminine equivalent is!) who spends all her spare time on her knees (not that I couldn't do with it) I thought I'd tell you what I else I did with my day off . . .

We're not the sort of family that makes changes often in the way of decorating schemes so when recently we needed to patch up some slight cracks in our hallway and 'make good' the repairs, I knew it wasn't going to be easy to find a match for the paint that we used, probably at least ten years ago - I told you we don't decorate often!

I am one of those annoying 'a place for everything and everything in its place' people so it was fairly easy to lay my hands on the original paint colour chart from those days. It must be bordering on obsessive to keep things like this - worrying!

Well, the paint colour in question was one of these 'mixed to your own specification' jobs purchased at a local DIY store. So, off I trotted clutching my colour chart expecting to have to search through umpteen near matches.

Imagine my surprise when I asked the colour-mixing chappie - Just call me 'Shakey Jakey' - who said, let's see if it's still on the computer? And, lo and behold, it was!

Next exciting part of the day - you've heard the expression 'like watching paint dry', well watching paint being mixed I found quite interesting.

Taking a plain base colour and pressing a few buttons on the computer and, hey presto - the exact amount of other colours - in this case small amounts of 4 other colours are added to the base paint. Then the exciting part - this mixture is placed on the shaking/mixing/stirring thingamabob and whizzed around until perfectly blended. As people who don't understand things are often heard to comment, 'It's amazing what you can do with computers nowadays, isn't it?'

Looks like this couple forgot to put the lid securely on the tin before they put in on the shaking/mixing/stirring thingumabob!

Saints, Feast Days etc. . . .

One of the many things that I like about the Catholic Church (a very simplistic way of looking at things, I know) is the wealth of Saints to inspire us.

Today, for example we have the memorial of St Jean-Marie Vianney, Patron of Parish Priests.

I often hear people saying things like, 'oh, so-and-so is one my favourite saints' or 'I have a special devotion to St so-and-so'. I just wouldn't be able to choose a few out of the many. It seems to me that quite often when we are celebrating a particular Saint's feast day, that particular saint has something special to say to me.

How fortunate for me that today's feast falls on a Wednesday. This is my day off and I usually manage to get to morning Mass in a church where there is Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament after Mass and a brief period of Adoration finishing with Benediction. Probably only about 15 minutes in total but what a special 15 minutes that is. A privileged time to spend with Our Lord in prayer. Coincidentally, it's also just about the time it takes me to pray five decades of the Rosary so today I was able to pray for all parish priests, remembering especially those known to me.

Funny how these things seem to work out, isn't it?

Archbishop Vincent Nichols on preparing for Pope Benedict's visit . . .

Mac has posted an excellent video about The Papal Visit on her blog which reminded me of this video in which Archbishop Vincent Nichols looks forward to the visit of HH Pope Benedict in September.

Archbishop Nichols talks about ways in which we can prepare for the Papal Visit. He makes a very good point that it is important to prepare well.

He's right of course; just about anything we do can be much improved by good preparation whether it's cooking; painting woodwork; writing an essay or delivering a speech. The more effort we put into the preparation the better the end result -at least that's always been my experience (a lesson sometimes learnt the hard way by lack of revision leading to poor exam results!)

One of the best ways that we can all prepare for Pope Benedict's visit is by prayer. We can, and I think should, all be praying for the success of the visit not just on a personal level but that it is successful on a parish, diocesan and national level for the Catholic Church in this country.

God of truth and love,
your Son, Jesus Christ, stands as the light
to all who seek you with a sincere heart.
As we strive with your grace
to be faithful in word and deed,
may we reflect the kindly light of Christ
and offer a witness of hope and peace to all.
We pray for Pope Benedict
and look forward with joy
to his forthcoming visit to our countries.
May he be a witness to the unity and hope
which is your will for all people.
We make our prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Our Lady, Mother of the Church — pray for us.
St Andrew — pray for us.
St George — pray for us.
St David — pray for us.

Papal Visit - a flurry of activity . . .

There seems to be a sudden increase in information coming from the Papal Visit organisers. The Twitter feed has a flurry of tweets today including a link to the weekly audio update here.

In this update Mgr Andrew Summersgill talks about arrangements for Pilgrims, including the decision to reduce the Pilgrim contribution for Hyde Park to £5. Good news for Pilgrims but more work for those parishes where monies have already been collected (like ours) and refunds now have to be arranged.

He also mentions the launch of the online souvenirs shop (glad to see I got in early on that one! :-)).

For anyone on Twitter who doesn't know about the Papal Visit feed it's well worth adding - @thepapalvisit

Papal Souvenirs . . .

Like many bloggers, I expect, I have added @thepapalvisit to my Twitter feed and it's a very useful way of keeping up to date with official news about the forthcoming visit.

Having a bit of spare time this evening and in the mood for a bit of light relief, I thought I'd have a look at the official souvenirs now being offered for sale to commemorate the Papal Visit.

I must say, they all seem in fairly good taste although I don't know that I'd particularly want to buy a flashing candle.

Looking further afield at some non-official suppliers, I came across some very interesting T shirts and hoodies. Most of them quite acceptable though not to my personal taste but then I think I'm getting past the slogan T shirt stage!

GBTP? - God Bless the Pope, of course!

And finally, a couple of designs you definitely won't see me in this September . . .

And looking to the States, I have to admit, I find this little chap quite appealing . . .


Being middle-aged and boring, I'll probably end up with a Papal mug - after all, you can't go wrong with a china mug, can you? Who knows, maybe I'll really push the boat out and buy a matching tea-towel!

I wonder if any other bloggers have come across any really super duper souvenirs for sale yet (or even any particularly tacky ones!)