Holy Days . . .

As well as having decided to reinstate the practice of abstaining from eating meat on Friday to fulfill the obligation of Friday Penance, our Bishops have also discussed the restoration of two of the three Holy Days of Obligation which were transferred to Sundays in 2006.

Hooray!

The two Holy Days in question are the Feast of the Epiphany and the Feast of the Ascension

Admittedly, they're going to spend 6 months thinking about it but it's a step in the right direction. Let's hope we get our Holy Days back on the 'right' days after the next plenary meeting of the Bishops in November.

It felt very odd to have celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany before 'Twelfth Night' this year!

Funnily enough we'll be in Brugges on 2nd June (Ascension Day, proper :-) ) this year visiting friends and family so we may well end up celebrating the feast twice; once on Thursday and then again on the following Sunday in England.

Anna Arco has an interesting article on this subject on the Catholic Herald's website here if you'd like to read more.

Well, who'd ha thunk it . . . ?

Well, who'd ha' thunk it?

I wonder how many people would have expected scenes like the one above in Cork to have taken place in Ireland during the Queen's recent visit?

I'm delighted that the Queen's visit has passed off not just safely for all concerned but that it also seems have been quite a success. The graciousness of both the Irish President, Mary McAleese and Her Majesty the Queen has been apparent from the first and the warmth between the two women has been there for all to see.

There are numerous articles about the visit online. Here is one from the BBC's Nicholas Witchell in which he gives a good analysis and overview of the visit.

Well done Ireland!

So much going on . . .

Oh, there's so much happening at the moment and I just can't find the time to give it all enough thought to put together a coherent blog post.

But . . .

Hooray for the restoration of the Friday Fast by the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales!

Three cheers for the recently given Instruction, Universæ Ecclesiæ!

Alleluia for the Ordinariate ordinations!

Who knows, at this rate, maybe we'll even get to have 'Ascension Thursday' back again!

More later, when things calm down a bit . . .

What happened to poor old St Joseph . . . ?

We celebrated St George's feast day on Monday. Of course it had to be transferred as it would otherwise have been on Holy Saturday this year.

And today we had the Feast of the English Martyrs recently raised to the rank of feast by the recognito of the Holy See, with St Philip and St James sandwiched in between. A plethora of feasts this week.

But what happens to poor old St Joseph (the Worker) this year?

I know we've already celebrated the feast of St Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in March but what about 1st May and the feast of St Joseph the Worker?

This feast was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1955 supposedly in response to the 'May Day' celebrations for workers.

Does he just get 'missed out' this year? Just wonderin' . . .