What a wonderful week for Catholicism. 22 new Cardinals if the caption in the Sunday Telegraph was right. 22 new Princes of the Church. Let us pray and hope that they defend the Faith and evangelise for Catholicism in all their lands.
I don't know the "politics" of the appointments, but we can only hope with Pope Benedict that we have more Cardinals now that will be mindful of Catholic traditions and also stand up to the aggressive secularism of the atheists.
Now we have discussed the 'top' of the Church militant, let's have some fun with its lower echelons. That's us.
It's a no from me.
In the car this morning we were joking about the happy-clappy hymns out there. You know the kind: "You are the pop and I am the cup" with the repetitive chorus: "Give us curly straws of love."
Then I got to thinking. We all remember the word-change hymns and carols of school days such as "When shepherds washed their socks by night..." and I sang, in light of the many old bangers I've owned which often reached journey's end by stint of storming heaven with prayers: "Give me oil in my car, keep it running, give me oil in my car I pray."
So please let me know what are your favourite made-up happy clappy or word-change hymns. The cheesier the better. And (new) Cardinals can join in too!
A very Merry and Holy Christmas to all readers. Nadolig Llawen pawb.
I hope you have all had a wonderful time. With Mass, Christmas dinner and yes even pressies today has been wonderful. I do love Christmas, and the amazing fact of the Incarnation.
Today I was lucky enough to receive a wonderful present, a Pieta statue (pictured here) which came from Walsingham. It might seem strange at Christmas, but it is prescient indeed to recall, whilst we marvel at the birth of the Christ child and the all-consuming joy his Blessed Mother must have felt, that Our Lord was born to go through His Passion and His Mother would witness these awful events.
Our Lord's Incarnation brought joy to the world for those "men of goodwill" (who enjoy God's favour), but this would soon be followed by the massacre of the Holy Innocents, just as the entry into Jerusalem would be followed by the Crucifixion.
God's works of mercy are so often undermined by the machinations of evil men. Just as in this very day and age we have been given the means to peace and wellbeing via Holy Mother Church's guidance on Just War, the Common Good, Social Teaching, Morality and the Family -- yet evil men deliberately undermine all these means to establish peace on earth (under the Social Kingship of Christ) for their own greed.
We Catholics should pray - and act - to establish the Kingship of Christ in our own countries. Our Lord should not be shut up in our churches, nor reduced to visiting hours on Sundays.
I used to say that Hark the Herald Angels Sing was my favourite carol, but I've recently 'fallen head over heels' for O Holy Night. I think it encapsulates everything about Christmas, not least how we should adore, worship, glorify, love and get lost in the majesty and humility of the Christ child.
"Fall on your knees!" Indeed.
So here is a clip of the Scottish Catholic singer, Susan Boyle, singing this most wonderful carol:
This coming Sunday is Gaudete Sunday. A genuine time to "rejoice" at the coming birth of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As Catholics we should always rejoice, mindful that our God-made-man lived among us, was born into relative poverty and obscurity, to deliver us from the grip of sin and open the gates of Heaven to us all, if we make our lives worthy of that reward.
I loved this song/carol when I first heard the Steeleye Span version (a great band - get their best-of CD for some wonderful English folk music). The words are particularly moving (see bottom clip for English translation) and encapsulate all that Catholics have held dear about Christmas for 2000 years.
Funnily enough I came across a protestant site all about Carols (sorry I don't recall its name) and it said that Catholics frowned upon Carols, keeping them outside the Church, so that they only became popular in later years.
What rot! As this moving Christmas Carol testifies. It is true that the Mass was virtually unchanged throughout the Medieval period - codified in the Council of Trent to stay absolutely unchanged until the New Mass post Vatican 2; but the idea that Catholics did not celebrate Christmas ignores the fact that the Mass was the central part of spiritual life for Catholics, but there was much else celebrated too, especially on Feast/Holy Days and especially at Easter and Christmas.
Such airbrushing of history to make Catholics seem like cheerless automatons is typical of such sites - ignoring the fact that it was the protestants themselves who ripped apart our beloved Liturgical year, banning Christmas, banning Holy Days, stopping pilgrimage, and so much more to overturn the Catholic Traditions which were the very lifeblood of Europe.
As Belloc said, Europe is the Faith, the Faith is Europe - so in celebrating Advent, Gaudete Sunday and Christmas itself we in Wales, and our fellow Catholics in England, Ireland and Scotland are remaining very much part of a European and Catholic Tradition that centuries of penal laws and enforced protestantism has not been able to destroy.
So this Sunday go to Mass, pray the Rosary and raise a glass! Let us celebrate our Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith and the coming birth of the Saviour of the World, Jesus Christ.
The following has terrible sound quality but is handy for its English translation of the Latin:
Probably like you, dear reader, I despise the commercialisation of Christmas which seems to start with gusto as soon as Fireworks Night is out of the way.
And yet, such is my feeling of joy as Christmas approaches, that I can't resist feeling a sense of excitement in the air as we near December.
Personally I don't care much for presents and all that side of it (being officially as tight as a duck's hind-quarters, like my father before me), besides which as I have crossed the Rubicon and am now in my 40s, just how many pairs of socks, underpants, after shave etc. do I need?
No, I am fully caught up in the spiritual side of Christmas and I am nothing if sentimental about the whole thing.
The cold, dark evenings remind me of when, as a child, I would look up at the stars and imagine the infant Jesus in that stable so many miles away, so many years ago also under the star-lit sky. The shepherds, the angels, then the kings from the east and so on.
That to me was and is the essence of Christmas. It is a simple vision of Christmas, one held by a child, yet it has always stayed with me.
I love the simple things about Christmas, the sense of impending happiness and joy, the carols, the liturgy of Advent, the feast of Christmas itself.
I don't want to sound like an ascetic as I love a nice beer and pork pie as much as the next middle aged man (especially when scoffed - with half a carrot - on Christmas Eve with the crumb-laden remnants left as the evidence of Santa and Rudolf's visit), but for me Christmas is all about the joy of the Nativity and that special feeling, that uplifting of the soul, that "magic" of Christmas, well I don't think it will ever leave me.
So, as much as I loathe the commercialism of Christmas to the degree that it is today a spend-fest, I cannot help but begin to be excited at the prospect of Advent and the countdown to Christmas that this heralds.
I think my all time favourite Christmas carol is Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Primarily because it was my favourite as a child and I have vivid memories of trying to reach those high notes in school assembly or standing carol singing on doorsteps in the neighbourhood, but also because it evokes that time when the Hosts of Heaven appeared to those simple workingmen on the hillside of Bethlehem to announce the birth of Our Lord and mankind's Saviour. It also reminds me of the "newborn King" - i.e. that He was and is Christ the King, to Whom all nations and societies should be subject.
So I am sorry (well, not that sorry!) if I offended anyone with my eagerness to embrace Advent and Christmas, but that is who I am.
