(1) The Pilgrimage of Grace (Historic UK)
“The policies of Henry VIII did much to change the country and shape its future; those who resisted with the Pilgrimage of Grace have since fallen into the shadows of history.”
Have they really fallen into the shadows or are they more like the flickering flames of a candle? Many of the martyrs who resisted are memorialized in the Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs at Westminster Cathedral and on Tyburn. But you could argue that England has lived in the shadows ever since the Dissolution, and certainly the version that exists today is a very dark place indeed.
If England has a pulse, it’s ALIVE in places like Walsingham, Canterbury (St. Thomas Becket), and in parishes all over England where the Eucharist is celebrated at Mass. Countless Anglican churches have been turned into coffee shops, galleries, and community centers, and in some local communities only open as museums when they can find volunteers from the parish community to open the doors.
(2) A related quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”
Category Archives: Catholicism
Our Lady of Walsingham
(1) Her Immaculate Majesty: The Queen of England (The Imaginative Conservative)
“A moment,” she said, “and the dead shall revive;
The giants are failing,
the Saints are alive;
I am coming to rescue
my home and my reign,
And Peter and Philip
are close in my train.”
The greatest saint ever to have lived…
(1) The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Westminster Cathedral)
The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of three liturgical feasts in which we celebrate a birth: Christmas, the Birth of Saint John the Baptist, and the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Only the three most important figures in the Bible receive the honour of a liturgical celebration to commemorate their nativity.
(2) A quote from The Gift of Silence by Jerome Kodell, OSB:
The favorite images of Mary in art are the moments of silence: the annunciation; the scene at the crib—as a Christmas carol says, ‘How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given’; and Mary holding the body of Jesus in her arms beneath the cross. The silence of Mary is not an empty silence. It is a silence of contemplation: of waiting, of pondering, of loving. Mary pondering the message of Gabriel at the beginning and Mary with Jesus at the end: these are two different moments—of bewilderment, surprise, and apprehension, and loss of life, pain, and sorrow. The word that comes out of these moments is then and for all eternity the word of acceptance, submission: Fiat, ‘let it be.'”
Weekend 562.0
(1) A Role Model for Bishops (The Catholic Thing)
“Although our situation is still much better than that of Christians in Syria, Iraq, and many other parts of the world, it is fast deteriorating. For that reason, it is so important for bishops today to study the example of St. Thomas Becket and so many other martyrs, many of them members of the episcopacy. For the faithful Christian, the best always lies ahead, since heaven awaits us.”
Weekend 560.2 (pro Ecclesia contra mundum)
Excerpt from “Benedict XVI and the Call to Holiness” by Joseph Pearce
The spirit of worldliness within the Church, which is made manifest in modernism, can only be countered by a spirit of other-worldliness, a spirit of sanctity. “Saints … reformed the Church … by reforming themselves,” Benedict reminds us. “What the Church needs in order to respond to the needs of man in every age is holiness….” The Church does not need modernists calling for the power of the people, she needs saints, the true people of God who live and love in communion with the Mystical Body of Christ.
And so we return to where we started. It’s all about the battle between good and evil. As Pope Benedict reminds us, the Church doesn’t need programs, or committees, or bureaucracy; she needs saints. “The Church, I shall never tire of repeating it, needs saints more than functionaries.”
Orval Abbey in Belgium
Stained glass windows in the chapel of the bishops, executed by Boquet, after the cartoons of Miss Margot Weemaes, who, for the same oratory, also made two frescoes. Discreetly historiated stained-glass windows, simple illuminations in short, illustrating themes from the life of Notre-Dame, they provide this chapel with maximum clarity.
Source: Quarterly review of sacred art published by the Benedictines of the Abbey of Saint-Andre (1947)
Limestone Roof Photo Archives
Orval Abbey
Related
MARGOT WEEMAES at M LEUVEN
2022: Year-in-review
A couple of paragraphs to close out 2022. This is the year I said goodbye to London and put an exclamation point on Kingdom Hearts. I spent a night in Gettysburg and a couple more in Paris. I crossed the English Channel via the Eurostar. I read the Brothers York and Faith of Our Fathers. I saw the Wilton Diptych at the British Museum and watched the Southampton Saints WIN under the lights against the Norwich Canaries. I tracked down stained-glass in Hereford from a Christmas card given to my mom and dad by our parish priest. I hiked to Towton, outside York, to visit a battlefield that was pivotal in the War of the Roses. I toured all of the northern cathedrals- York, Durham, and Lincoln. I also travelled to the very edge of Empire for a weekend in Penzance and Lands End. There were a couple of more Saints matches, including a memorable one in Cambridge for the Carabao Cup. There were three Championship League matches in Stoke, Norwich, and Sunderland. I hosted my brother in the spring and we went to Southampton, London, and Ramsgate. I also caught Football: Designing the Beautiful Game at the Design Museum before it closed.
My last couple of weekend trips in England were to Coventry, Exeter, and Bath. One of the highlights of the year was mass at the Cathedral Church St John the Baptist in Norwich.
My BIG birthday was at PNC Arena to see my beloved NY Islanders put a hurt on the Hartford Whalers Carolina Hurricanes and I was at the Bridgeport Islanders home opener. I also went to a Bridgeport Islanders game to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the NY Islanders.
Pope Benedict XVI (1927 – 2022)
VENERATION OF THE HOLY SHROUD, MEDITATION OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI, Fifth Sunday of Easter, 2 May 2010 (Vatican)
Effectively, the Shroud was immersed in that profound darkness that was at the same time luminous; and I think that if thousands and thousands of people come to venerate it without counting those who contemplate it through images it is because they see in it not only darkness but also the light; not so much the defeat of life and of love, but rather victory, the victory of life over death, of love over hatred. They indeed see the death of Jesus, but they also see his Resurrection; in the bosom of death, life is now vibrant, since love dwells within it. This is the power of the Shroud: from the face of this “Man of sorrows”, who carries with him the passion of man of every time and every place, our passions too, our sufferings, our difficulties and our sins Passio Christi. Passio hominis from this face a solemn majesty shines, a paradoxical lordship.
A Real Indiana Jones Quest
This post is dedicated to my Mom.
What if I told you there was a priceless ancient work of art and relic that’s still in existence and just lost? It was the subject of an address and paper published by Lawrence E. Tanner for the Journal of the British Archaeological Association in 1954.
The artifact is the Cross of Edward the Confessor (1042 – 1066), and it was recovered from his shrine at Westminster Abbey during the coronation of King James II (1644–85). The story of its initial discovery is exciting, but it’s whereabouts after crossing the English Channel is where the mystery begins. It was given as a gift to Pope Benedict XIII in 1729 but then disappeared. After the death of Pope Benedict XIII, inquiries were made to the Vatican re: it’s whereabouts but those searches were unsuccessful.
“From the date of its presentation to Pope Benedict XIII on June 17th, 1729, to the present day no trace has ever been found of the cross of St. Edward. The interesting fact of the presentation, recorded among the Stuart Papers, has only come to light in recent years, and it caused the late dean of Westminster (Dr. de Labilliere) to make inquiries through the late Sir Eric Maclagan and the Apostolic Delegate whether or not anything was known at the Vatican about the cross. The Vatican authorities took the greatest interest in the matter and instituted a thorough search in the hope of being able to throw some light on the subject. A letter, now amongst the Abbey Muniments, states that ‘the cross is not in the Vatican Museum, nor in St. Peter’s, nor in the Vatican Galleries, nor in St. John Lateran, nor with the Dominicans (of whose order was Pope Benedict XIII)’. It also states that the diaries of the Papal Masters of Ceremonies had been searched in which mention was found ‘of the visits of British sovereigns and also of the Confirmation of the Prince and of the gifts and kindness of the Pope, but not a word about a cross or gold chain.'”
Related
The Quest for the Cross of St. Edward the Confessor by Lawrence E. Tanner
Edward the Confessor and John the Evangelist (New Liturgical Movement)
Edward the Confessor Shrine (Official Westminster Abbey Postcard)
A quote from Faith of Our Fathers by Joseph Pearce:
“The most ambitious project he [Edward the Confessor] undertook was the founding of Westminster Abbey, which would become and has remained the place for the coronation of the kings and queens of England. It was completed and consecrated shortly before his death and became his place of burial, his tomb and relics being undisturbed to this day, having survived the ravages of the Reformation with its iconoclastic destruction of England’s shrines to her saints.”
Other Facts
King James II was the last Catholic monarch of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Feast Day of St Thomas Becket
“They found in him a model of opposition to royal tyranny.” — Thomas Becket murder and the making of a saint
There are two very slim titles on Thomas Becket that should be included in your library. The first is A Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot. The second is The Book in the Cathedral by Christopher de Hamel.
A quote from Hilaire Belloc:
“That the Church of God is a visible single universal society, with powers superior to those of this world, and therefore of right, autonomous. That principle is the negation of the opposite…the principle that the divine and permanent is subject to the human and passing power. St. Thomas died for the doctrine, the truth, that the link with eternal things must never be broken under the pressure of ephemeral desires, that the control of eternal things cannot, in morals, be subjected to the ephemeral arrangements of men.”
Related
Becket’s shrine recreated digitally (Medievalists.net)
Murder and the making of a saint (British Museum)
Limestone Roof Photo Archives
Thomas Becket Exhibit
Canterbury
Canterbury Part II