Finem respice

Well, like probably many other blogs, I'm going to write a little bit about how today is the last day of the calendar year. Before I do so, I would like to first of all wish everyone a Happy Christmas and a similarly Happy New Year.

Today is called Hogmanay in Scotland, and the origins of the word are disputed. Anyway, there are some traditions/superstitions that are no longer carried out, hence why we notice them and talk about it. One of them is called first-footing, where the first person to come through the door after midnight should be a tall dark man (blond-haired men were not welcomed after Viking invasions, so it goes) bearing gifts of coal (for warmth), black bun (for food), salt (for wealth), and a hawf-bottle (an alcoholic drink, usually whisky, for obvious reasons).
Another little fact about Scotland and Hogmanay/Ne'ersday is that in the past it took place of Christmas, since Christmas celebrations were discouraged by the presbyterian Church of Scotland for being too Catholic. In fact, my dad remembers it being so until the 1960s, when my grandfather, a pretty staunch Presbyterian*, would work on Christmas Day.

And so we reach the end of AD 2009, and this inevitably causes everyone to carry out evaluations of the past year. For me, the year has been split in two. The time before me going abroad, which was roughly the first eight months, and then the latter four months in France. During the latter period, with lots of solitary free time, I spent a lot of it researching my faith and learning more, and everyone has noticed in this short time of being back in Scotland.

Finally, I would like to ask you to pray for my parish priest, who had a heart attack on Sunday and is in hospital. It looks as though he will be taking retirement even earlier than was planned (though he was meant to have taken it last September). However, his retirement spells the end of the parish, ultimately, and so please pray for my parish as well.

All the best for 2010.



*an example of how he thought would be the time when he wouldn't speak to my father since he was courting my mother, a Catholic. Nevertheless, my grandfather was always courteous to my mother. Then, there is the story of how he drank quite a bit of whisky in order to endure my parents' wedding in a Catholic church, somewhere he clearly had never planned on entering.

In Conceptione Immaculata Beatæ Mariæ Virginis

Introit
Gaudens gaudebo in Domino, et exultabit anima mea in Deo meo :

induit me vestimentis salutis; et indumento justitiæ circumdedit me,

quasi sponsam ornatam monibilis suis.

Exaltabo te, Domine, quoniam suscepisti me :

nec delectasti inimicos meos super me.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto,

sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,

et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Gaudens gaudebo in Domino, et exultabit anima mea in Deo meo :

induit me vestimentis salutis; et indumento justitiæ circumdedit me,

quasi sponsam ornatam monibilis suis.

Collect

Deus, qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum præparasti : quæsumus; ut, qui ex morte Filii tui prævisa eam ab omne labe præservasti, nos quoque mundos eius intercessione ad te pervenire concedas. Per eundem Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Gradual

Benedicta es tu Virgo Maria

a Domino Deo excelso præ omnibus

mulieribus super terram.

Tu gloria Jerusalem, tu lætitia Israel,

tu honorificentia populi nostri.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Tota pulchra es, Maria,

et macula originalis non est in te.

Alleluia.

Offertory

Ave, Maria, gratia plena :

Dominus tecum : benedicta tu

in mulieribus, alleluia.

Secret

Salutarem hostiam, quam in solemnitate immaculate Conceptionis beatae Virginis Mariae tibi, Domine, offerimus, suscipe et praesta: ut, sicut illam tua gratia prasveniente ab omni labe immunem profitemur; ita eius intercessione a culpis omnibus liberemur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Communion

Gloriosa dicta sunt de te, Maria :

quia fecit tibi magna qui potens est.

Post-Communion

Sacramenta quae sumpsimus, Domine Deus noster: illius in nobis culpse vulnera, reparent; a qua immaculatam beatae Mariae Conceptionem singulariter praeservasti. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Supercherie

Here are some lies which are whispered into your mental ear either in or near the occasion of sin, or after the loss of sanctifying grace. Prenez garde!

• You've been good for so long, one little look won't hurt.
• Well, you've sinned now, may as well just look again anyway. You'll have to go to confession anyway.
• You've done it again. Face it, you can't win.
• Just go along to the pub/to a bar. You can't stay shut inside all the time. Besides, nothing will happen.
• You should probably just stay inside. You know you're just putting yourself in temptation's path. Best be alone.
• Go to confession later. You need time to work through the sin.
• It wasn't that bad. Was there really deliberate consent? Or full knowledge?
• You probably shouldn't pray the rosary - you know you'll just get distracted and won't pray it well.
• Just take a peek.
• Thoughts don't count. Just indulge them.
• Phew! You've got that grace now. Just relax and enjoy it. Don't think about it.
• Think of how the priest judges you for confessing that pathetic sin yet again. Come on, change the record!
• Your sexuality is a gift. You shouldn't suppress your natural desires.
• How could God let you down like that? You've asked for His help time and time again yet look at you - fallen again.
• All those prayers to the saints seem to be useless. You're not making any progress whatsoever.
• The Lord won't mind you receiving Him now. Just confess later on in the week. It's too embarrassing not to receive. Everyone else does so you'd stand out. Everyone would judge you.
  

Slow awakening...

"But why do we have to go to Church?? It's boooooringggggg"
"Come on now, we're going to be late. Get your coat on!"
"How come Eddie doesn't have to go?"
"..."


This was a frequent conversation between my mum and me from when I was about nine to about twelve, though perhaps they stopped a little earlier or later. I then heard my mum have the same conversation with my younger brother, as he reached that age. I think it lasted a little longer for him, though.
But it was a mélange of reasons why this conversation stopped, and why I started liking going to Church, and this started the ball rolling to where I am now, and hopefully keep going until the day I die. First of all, I began to develop an interest in languages, and particularly in the roots of words. Now, in terms of English as a Germanic language, the resources are lacking. Sure, I can compare English with the other Germanic languages, which includes German, but comparing them with the "parent language" was much more difficult. So I found that it was much easier to investigate the Romance languages, and this was much more interesting, for there was still a huge corpus of Latin, which I considered the "parent language" of French, Italian, Spanish, etc. Therefore, I would write tables and tables of comparisons of various words; lists and lists of the stuff. I began to investigate why Latin was so inflected in comparison with the Romance languages of today, etc.
I became hungrier and hungrier for texts for comparison. The delight I had in finding out that the reason "factum" was "hecho" in Spanish, "fatto" in Italian and "fait" in French was similar to "ocho" "otto" and "huit" coming from octo (I'm simplifying things here, obviously). Now, where else was a better place to find texts for comparison than prayers! The number of times I wrote out Pater Noster, Padre nuestro, Notre Père, etc, you wouldn't believe. It was the same with the Credo. And the Hail Mary. And the Angelus....
Now, my skills for searching things on the internet were still limited at the time, and so I found it difficult to find some of these texts. Furthermore, by writing these comparisons, my interest in learning Latin grew ever greater (I've still not satisfied this yet). So I asked my gran about the "Latin Mass". She always said it was more beautiful, and I had the impression that if she knew about one nearby, she'd be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
So she searched in her wardrobe and in her chest of drawers until she found a missal from 1942. It's like some ancient relic, where the pages are extremely fragile (indeed, a lot of the important pages are missing unfortunately, probably from overuse). I loved it, but at the same time hated the fact that I couldn't use it.
So as time went by, my internet searching skills grew and I found ways of watching the mass of 1962 online (there were some differences between the 1962 mass and the missal I have). But generally, I realised that there was a lot more to this church business than just going along every Sunday. So over the past four years I've been ever so slowly learning more and more about the faith. Just within the last two and a half months I've learnt loads, since I'm on my own a lot more and spend far too much time reading blogs and stuff. Furthermore, here in Nantes they have an FSSP church where I could go to daily TLM if I wanted too. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to motivate myself to go every day, but I have made the effort. I also go to confession a lot more frequently here. I'd been slowly increasing my frequency to go to confession over the last two years when I discovered a weekly confession slot in the centre of Edinburgh. My local parish only offered it on Saturday mornings, and there was no confessional, so it was often too much of a chat and not enough penitential confession.
Basically, my interest in languages (a gift from God) lead me to be more interested in my faith. And my gran fostered that faith with discussions. Not high level theological discussions (which I like) but with simple devotional discussions and how God's providence has enabled her to carry the crosses in her life - in short, how God is good.

Birth-again-day

Twenty years ago today I was baptised in St Winefride's Church in Neston, England. I'd never given the day much thought previously, but now I'd like to thank God for this wonderful grace and sacrament.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, ...

... and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

As we approach the end of All Souls' week, I've actually spent a very strange week, but one realising how important this week is, even though in previous years it went by me virtually unnoticed. It's only recently that I've understood the doctrines of Purgatory and of Indulgences in any sort of way. They are still a deep mystery, but nevertheless they give me great joy and hope. Both are examples of God's great mercy, that he grants us a way of entering heaven even though are souls aren't spotless when we die. Indulgences are also a way for us to extend our charitable mission to the souls in Purgatory.

At my most recent confession, the priest (in very rapid French so I may have missed some of what he said) explained that obtaining a plenary indulgence for a soul in purgatory, who can no longer merit, has a twofold effect. First of all, by the good work done for the indulgence, along with the necessary conditions, allows the merit to be applied to the soul in purgatory, thus allowing them (if a plenary indulgence) to enter into the beatific vision. Then, you now have a friend in heaven who will undoubtedly intercede for you before the Lord, as you did for the soul.

Anyway, let us keep praying for our deceased brethren especially this month, but that doesn't mean forget them throughout the rest of the year. Have masses said for your deceased loved ones, pray for those people you read in newspapers, for those who die in any conflicts, for all those who have no one to pray for them specifically, and build up friends in heaven.

At last, found a Church

Well, I never managed to get to St Félix church as I missed the tram, but I went on instead to St Nicolas in the centre of town. Thankfully, the priest there doesn't seem to go on ego-trips, and also likes to sing the collect and postcommunion, which I think is a good sign. His homily was good and stuck to the the readings and the gospel and to the theme of missions, and he resolutely did things by the book, so even when the final hymn was sung before the dismissal had been said, he didn't just let it pass but then said the dismissal once the hymn had finished. Thanks be to God for such priests. Less orthodox priests would probably have let it slide.
I will still go to St Félix next week as it's much closer and would be handier, but if it has people grabbing my hand for the Our Father like the other church a few weeks ago, I'll just stick with St Nicolas.
People still stood during the consecration, like in every Ordinary Form mass I've been to here. It must be a "custom" that's crept in, but I'm definitely not adopting it. Luckily, the people in front of me (who were French) also knelt, and not just for the consecration, but for the whole Eucharistic prayer :)
I've unfortunately not been able to go to most of the student chaplaincy meetings on Wednesday evenings (mainly because I have a class till right before it starts and also bringing something to eat is an entry fee, which I wouldn't be able to do without carrying it about all day in my bag). Nevertheless, I will try and go again because I met some really nice people there. I can also at some point ask them about the French phobia for kneeling. Though that is for later.