Saint Jerome...

...patron saint of translators, pray for us!

Thanking God for the crosses He gives us

As mentioned in previous posts, God has given me a cross which is permanent (unless God sees fit to relieve me of it) and somewhat arduous. Almost everytime I am feeling low, the fact that I bear this cross occurs to me and I always end up asking God the same questions and making the same requests: "God, why did you give me this? Why is it so? Could you please relieve me of it if it is your will?", etc. I had a hard time accepting the facts as they stood. It is here to stay and to be borne by me.
My most recent incident where I was left feeling very low (though on reflection this was an overreaction and probably just due to tiredness) was similar. However, there was one crucial and quite substantial difference. At my lowest point in this dip, I happened to glance at the crucifix on my wall and immediately my mind turned to Calvary, and in particular to the experiences of our most blessed mother as she stood by her son's cross. This wasn't surprising as I have been reflecting a lot on Our Lady of Sorrows this month. At that moment of my own sorrow and sadness, I would normally proceed to ask God why, etc. This time, however, while thinking of the great sufferings of the Lord Jesus and the compassion of Mary, I was filled with enormous gratitude and the only thought that went through my mind was "Thank you God - thank you for letting me share in His suffering and hers. And though I still felt profoundly sad, in my heart I felt overwhelmingly thankful and happy. Not a superficial happiness of ice-cream smiles and buttondrop dimples but of an extreme contentment within my soul. Not one to usually go into such personal things (I've acquired a knee-jerk cynicism to or discomfort of occasions when people express their thoughts and emotions, even when they're often genuine), I couldn't help but be struck by this. For me, I felt that it was an answer to my prayers - yes, I will have to carry it, but even in my deepest sorrow I can recognise and love God, and thank Him too.

Carrying one's cross and following Jesus

For a couple of years now I have been consciously struggling with a very arduous cross that Jesus has awarded me and yes, I fail fairly often in carrying it by rejecting His grace. After the most recent incident, I reflected on the consequences of flinging the cross down and deciding not to carry it any more. The first effect I noted was that by no longer carrying one's cross, one stands upright. By carrying it, one is effectively doubled over and often falling to one's knees. Metaphorically, the meaning of this is pretty clear. When we throw down our cross, rejecting God's will for us out of stubbornness, our pride increases. We decide we will no longer put up with being subjugated - we can gain for ourselves our own freedom. The second effect is that we no longer have to follow the path of carrying the cross, the via crucis, but rather we can go in any other direction rather than this stony and difficult road of the cross.
Now, to the outsider, this casting off of the yoke of being a Christian and no longer following the path laid out for us by Jesus as He carried His may seem like a relief - the discovery of freedom instead of the slavery of the cross. However, to the Christian, this is a passing into grave peril. By standing upright, we are no longer careful of where we walk as we are no longer looking at the ground. We may step on all sorts of painful and horrible things. Secondly, we no longer have any destination. Our direction in life is a direction away from something, not towards something. Also, we hear the words of our Saviour when we consider this wide path away from the via crucis; "the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life" (Mt 7:13b-14). 
After having considered the effects of rejecting one' cross, I then reflected on what it means by accepting one's cross. By carrying it, as stated before, one is bowed down and low. Again, this is metaphorically clear - when we accept the yoke that Jesus gives us, we become more humble. Bearing and accepting to carry one's cross is a humbling experience. After accepting it, we struggle along the rocky path which has only one destination - the garden of the tree of life - Calvary. Like the Lord, we are helped by friends and family along the way, and most importantly, by the Lord, who Himself has gone before us. And His mother, our mother, Mary, is there to comfort us and pray for us along the way as we make our permanent pilgrimage to stand with her at the foot of the cross, giving thanks to our Saviour.

"God wants your friendship"

Due to the inexplicable bank holiday on Monday, I decided to go to Mass before meeting up with some friends from university. Usually on Monday I have a class which coincides with the Mass times of both the Cathedral in Edinburgh and St Patrick's (where the Shrine of the Venerable Margaret Sinclair is situated). On Monday I went to the latter church.

It was the feast of Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang and companions, the Korean martyrs and so the priest was vested in a magnificent yet classic Gothic vestment (ken, the one with the sort of Y-shaped cross on it). Anyway, this is all beside the point. For the homily, the priest mentioned the Pope's visit and in particular mentioned what the Pope had said in his address to young Catholics at Twickenham. What struck the priest was the Pope's extremely simple message "God wants your friendship". The priest went on to say what you usually do with a true friend - you tell him things, you talk to him a lot - both about serious matters but also about nonsense, you do things for him to demonstrate your love for him. The most perfect of friendships should therefore be our friendship with God, who said to his apostles "I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father" (Jn 15:15). Previously the Lord also says "A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends" (Jn:15:13). Thus those martyrs in Korea proved that they were friends of God by laying down their life for him.

Bellahouston Mass and the ongoing Papal Visit

Well, the Mass yesterday was wonderful and totally worth the long wait. It was a very long day but I loved every moment of it. The Pope's homily was particularly interesting and totally accurate. Since I have poor analytical skills, I'll leave it to the countless others who have commented on blogs. Here is a list of some of them, which I will update over the next few days as well as more speeches are delivered by the Pontiff:

By Father Z at What Does The Prayer Really Say?:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/09/benedict-xvis-state-visit-begins-in-scotland/#comments
There are loads more on WDTPRS but they start from this point in terms of reporting on the actual visit as opposed to the run-up.

By Scottish Catholic Teuchtar:
http://catholicteuchtar.blogspot.com/2010/09/papal-homily-at-bellahouston-park.html
http://catholicteuchtar.blogspot.com/2010/09/papal-mass-youngster.html
http://catholicteuchtar.blogspot.com/2010/09/scotland-does-pope-proud.html
http://catholicteuchtar.blogspot.com/2010/09/hear-him-read-him-love-him.html

By Seraphic Spouse:
http://seraphicgoestoscotland.blogspot.com/2010/09/live-from-bellahouston-park.html
http://seraphicgoestoscotland.blogspot.com/2010/09/home-from-glasgow-achoo.html
http://seraphicgoestoscotland.blogspot.com/2010/09/bellahouston-mass-report-official.html

At Whispers In the Loggia

By Joe Heschmeyer at Shameless Popery:
http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2010/09/police-thwart-possible-terrorist-attack.html

At the cross her station keeping....

Stabat mater dolorosa
juxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.

O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!
Quae moerebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?
Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?

Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.

Burning, draining and ending.

A friend of mine, incidentally one I've mentioned before, has three categories of disliking someone or something. They are:

Burning - when anger is the dominating emotion.
Draining - when disappointment or boredom are the dominating emotions.
Ending - either a combinating of burning and draining, or the loss of the will to live.

An example of this would be "Tatchell's documentary drained me" because every argument has been heard a zillion times before and you felt excitement every time someone espousing and supporting Catholic doctrines spoke (which were rare occasions and yet rarer). See Damian Thompson's review of the documentary.

Yawn... it must be getting late...

... either that or fact that Peter Tatchell's The Trouble With The Pope was as expected.

The Mass at Bellahouston (part two)

Today I will continue on with the description of the Mass which is to take place at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow next Thursday. I will admit that it is mainly a description of the music with a little bit about the liturgical texts to be used:


The Offertory to the Preface
During the Offertory and the Preparation of the Gifts, "Celtic Invocation" will be sung, which looks like a rendition of St. Patrick's Breastplate. Then the Preface and its introduction will be sung in Latin to the usual chant. Having a quick glance at the Latin and its accompanying English translation to the left of it (which then is oddly and confusingly to the right on the following page, meaning the Latin is always found nearer the middle of the page and the English to the edges), there is a slight omission, namely "through Jesus Christ our Lord".

The Mass at Bellahouston (part one)

Given that I've managed to wangle my way to Bellahouston due to having a relative with friends in high places (she's best friends with a Vicar General), I think it is meet to "hae a wee shufty" at how it will pan out. My relative handed my brother and me two golden booklets by Magnificat outlining everything about the Papal Visit. At first I felt privileged at having this golden piece of treasure that no one else seemed to have until they were handing them out willy-nilly to everyone after Mass last Sunday. That sure burst my bubble about being privy and in possession of such arrangements. Anyway, I digress. Here is a quick outline of the Mass at Bellahouston, from the "Gathering" to the Prayer of the Faithful (the rest will be up another time, as it's late):

Gathering In
Starting like a football match, the "Gathering In Prayer - Hymns" section (a misnomer since we won't be gathering but rather will have already been there for about two hours) are How Lovely on the Mountains with the delightful refrain "Our God Reigns" to rival any chanting coming from the nearby Ibrox football stadium (Glasgow Rangers, for those not cognizant thereof) followed by Hail Redeemer (the chorus ends with a belting of "King of love on Calvary"). After this, the Choir sings "My Dearest Lord: Prayer of St Columba". Then we're all back in with "When Christ our Lord" with the choir coming in afterwards again with "To Christ the Seed" (here's the tune).
I must admit at this point that I don't know any of the previous three hymns so I cannot comment on whether they are good or bad. All I know is that the first one is a Kevin Mayhew one so you can draw your own conclusions from that fact.
Then it comes back to us again with that old favourite of the strumming guitar group at Masses at my school - "City of God". I remember disliking this one even when I was eleven or twelve (at time when staples such as "Colours of Day" "I the Lord of sea and sky" and the one above, "Our God Reigns" were perfectly fine for me). There's something about "tears be turned into dancing" accompanied with the tune which just sounds ridiculous. Following this there is then "Ninian of Galloway" to remember that it is the Feast of St Ninian when this Mass takes place.

The Scotsman on the Papal Visit (Parts 2 & 3)

Unfortunately, yesterday and on Tuesday I had no time to write anything about the second and third parts of The Scotsman's little series on the Papal visit by Stephen McGinty. So here they are now, but together.

The second part on Tuesday focused on the "key issues of concern" for the Pope. It starts with a summary of various issues which the Pope has dealt with in some way, particularly those which caused headlines such as the Regensburg speech, the comment on condoms contributing to the AIDS crisis and the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops. And of course the child sex abuse crisis was mentioned. However, the tone of the article is not too condemnatory, stating that Benedict is trying to prepare the Church for the Dark Age of Secularism and also noting a description of the Holy Father's reaction when listening to abuse cases as Prefect of CDF, saying "the physical disgust you could see on Ratzinger's face". It continues on with various people describing the Pope's gentleness and contrasting it with the media's initial description as "God's rottweiler" and "panzer cardinal". It also mentions his membership in the Hitler youth but also saying that his father was an anti-Nazi and that attendance at the HY was compulsory. Finally, the article continues with various anecdotes such as meeting Pele and not knowing who he was and then what the Pope may talk about. The media seem concerned a lot with whether a "controversial statement" (read "reiteration of Catholic doctrine") but John L Allen, his biographer and writer for the National Catholic Reporter, imagines that issues such as homosexuality and life issues may come up but it won't be his main point.
So all in all, for any Catholic who knows anything about the Pope, all of this is nothing new under the sun but I suppose it is quite useful for those who don't. Overall, the article was quite a fair one without too much bias. The only other thing on the page is to conform with The Scotsman's standards of parochiality, boasting of the fact that Monsignor Leo Cushley, a priest from the Diocese of Motherwell, is the head of the English Language desk at the Secretariat of State, meaning he is responsible "for the Church's relations with the English speaking world, a massive territory that includes North America, Australia, Britain and territories in the Far East".Oooh, well there you go!

The third and final part of the series centred on the future of the Church, particularly in Scotland. It featured interviews with three Bishops - Bishop Devine of Motherwell, Bishop Tartaglia of Paisley and Cardinal O'Brien of St Andrew's and Edinburgh. Each one basically discussed the challenges ahead and the need to stick to the teachings of the Church even if comes to the point that preaching them is "illegal" because of hate speech laws. The Cardinal says that he would like Catholics to be able to fight their corner, even if small in number and he quotes Paul, calling Catholics to "preach in season and out of season". I liked this article because there was actually very little commentary and it was mainly a platform for the most senior representatives of the Church in Scotland to voice their views and hopes. Nevertheless, the article states that while at one point the Scottish College of Bishops was once one of the youngest in the world, it is now one of the oldest, meaning that these senior representatives are senior in more ways than one. This was also made evident at the Mass I went to yesterday for the Silver Jubilee of Cardinal O'Brien's episcopal ordination. It was a reasonably grand affair and I got to shake his hand at the end and even pose in a photograph (though I did protest a little). Never mind - at least he didn't find out my full name and realise I was the one whom he told off about a letter I sent about a year ago...

The Scotsman on the Papal Visit (Part 1)

From today till Wednesday, the Scotsman will be providing us lucky readers to some information and background to the Papal Visit. Today, in the first of the three parts, a comparison is drawn between the Scotland of 1982 when Pope John Paul II visited and the Scotland of today. A whole range of figures and diagrams showing various statistics are shown demonstrating that pretty much across the board every figure has fallen (except, perhaps notably, but I'm not going to comment on it, the average weekly donation in the Diocese of Paisley, which was taken as an indicator of the situation in the whole of Scotland). Alongside this, in tiny writing in the bottom corner, there are also figures from the Church of Scotland, for further comparison (because comparing is what we love to do, and it's easier for journalists to fill a page without saying much). In addition to this, we are told that membership of the Humanist Society of Scotland has risen 700 per cent.

Speaking of not saying much, it's not like we didn't know all this anyway, as it is rammed down our throats with relish at every opportunity. But then, to back this up, there are stories about Clare, a biology teacher who decided that the inability of a priest to explain something to her was one of the reasons why she stopped believing and John, a former priest who couldn't reconcile celibacy with his desire to marry and then felt abandoned by the Church. Finally, to warm the cockles of our hearts, we hear of Rachel, a yoof (relatively speaking - she is a little older than me, but the other two above are in their 50s and 60s) who was rather out of control in her teens. She had the enlightening experience of attending a World Youth Day, hoping to simply get a cheap holiday out of it, but this, couple with what I suspect was the real turning point for her, sitting in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, led to her conversion to the Lord. Excuse the cynical outlook, but for once I am impressed with the Scotsman for actually finding someone, and not only that but someone young, to show that the Faith is still alive in Scotland.

Let's see what's in store for us tomorrow... I can't wait.