SS Peter & Paul

Blackcurrants

Last year I harvested 4oz from the bushes. Their first.

This year 12oz.

A bountiful harvest. Let's hope for another threefold increase in 2011.

Via Romea

Follow my intrepid friends via their blog here as they cycle from Sidcup to Rome.

They have a link for donations.

The charities?

Mary's Meals and The Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative.

Good choices.

Off you go!

St John Fisher

Not the best bit of info this because I've lost the book I read it in.

But when Henry VIII was setting the date for St John Fisher's execution, he wanted to avoid the Feast of St John the Baptist. Heads on plates. Bad PR. Lots of the public were not happy.

A few years ago I went to an RSC production by Shakespeare and friends' play, 'St Thomas More.' It was excellent. More witty, warm and fair, punning away. But who else got a big part in this play written 50 years after the executions? St John Fisher.

Also interesting is that when Elizabeth I came to the throne all (nearly all) the Bishops gave up their Sees.

In 1535? Only St John Fisher.

PS five people have googled today for this prayer by St John Fisher. I got it off a prayer card given out at my last parish in Dartford. Dartford at the time of the Reformation had the only Dominican Convent in england. St John Fisher's half sister was a nun there as were several sisters of the Carthusians martyred at Tyburn.

The same lady who got the cards done also wrote the history of the parish. Turns out upstairs from my hairdressers is were Mass was celebrated in the 19thC by an Italian missionary.

Whilst we are on local history in 1985 my Mum and I saw St John Fisher's calendar in Lewes (of all places.) It was on loan from Kent to East sussex. We had a look thro', no gloves or anything, but apart from dates my Mum couldn't decifer the writing. We were looking for reference their parish, then celebrating its 50th anniversary.

New Catholic Music Blogs

See

Jubal's Review

and

The Chant Cafe

for where it's at

or via Our Lady of the Rosary Church Choir where you can learn Mass XI for Sunday along the way. (Assuming you need to...)

Broad beans