Friday 21 June 2013

Unlikely readers

Nigel Farrage engrossed in his copy of Pravda.

Tony Benn avid reader of The Daily Mail.

Mac with her copy of Allotment Weekly - free packet of carrot seeds with this ishoo.
Not to mention the oft alluded to monthly Dog Owner Today and RSPB Newsletter.

Me and my copies of Autocar, Puffer Train Express and Airfix Model Builder - collect pots of a variety of fetching shades of sludge paint each month. Send in photos of you best models dangling precariously from your bedroom ceiling from bits of thread from your Mother's work basket. ( I have two brothers, I know about these things.)

Jonathan and his Lager Lights

Matthaeus Polyester Vestments Supplement free pottery Altar Vessels pullout

Zephy Modernist Ecclesiastical Architecture Quarterly incorporating Rock Mass Vibes free tie dye kit in orange and turquoise.

Fr Tim and any other priest you can think of with their Vogue subscriptions. All these different clothes. All different colours. What's wrong with a black cassock? Yesterday, today and everyday.

Fr Z with his copy of The Pacifist. No guns allowed. Even toy ones. Especially cap guns and assault rifles.

A Catholic and a copy of The Tablet.

I was in Westminster Cathedral today and that Editorial was there.

September 2010 Pope Benedict, as was, was in the Cathedral. He must have walked right past where the newspapers are at the back.

I also wondered what might happen if you were hovering around lapsed or thinking of becoming a Catholic and you happened to pick it up and have a skim through. Not a great thought, that one is it? Could happen anywhere anything dodgy is stocked in a Church.

I'm not singling out Westminster Cathedral, which has many good points, not least hours and hours of Confessions everyday and a world class Choir, but it is Westminster Cathedral.

What would The Tablet have to print to get removed from all Churches?
Today they slate

BXVI
The EF Mass
SSPX
The Ordinariate ( Withering? Whither withering?)
The new translation into English of the OF Mass.

Have I missed anything?

All in one editorial.

Tablet bingo time.




Saturday 15 June 2013

Not so far off





One of the 11 year olds I teach labelled a picture of a tambourine, 'tangerine,' on his end of year exam paper. Makes a change from clarenet, chello, base, trumbone violla, etc.

I blame the teacher...

Friday 14 June 2013

My favourite flowers




June in the garden.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Musica Sacra Scotland Conference Saturday 9th November, Glasgow.

All the details and registration details here.

Top people. Top stuff.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

ACTA

That acronym has been taken.

See the thing is if you look around you at church, there just are not very many people who may be termed young.

I'd like to be young but I'm not really anymore. Sad, but true.

Most Catholics my age, do other things on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Saturday nights. Every week. They've gone. They might come back at Christmas, but mainly, they are elsewhere.

Those of us who do turn up got good very quickly at saying, 'And with Your Spirit.'

Heavens, I don't even go to Mass in English that often and even I've stopped trying to say, 'And also with Your Spirit.' It was never that hard to say, 'Et avec Votre Espirit, ' on hols in France after all.

If you are below retirement age, being a practising Catholic is not on trend, in worldy terms. When was it ever? Pick any issue relating to sexual morality and your views do not fit. Choose how you will steer the conversation. Decide with whom you will socialise, which jokes you don't laugh at, which magazines, books, TV progs and films, you don't read or watch, which places you don't go to, which substances you don't imbibe. And so it goes on.

Negotiating all that and having the need to attack the Church, just don't really go together.

Have fun running the Church down and moaning, why don't you.

Meantime, there are many young people doing very edifying things. He's just one of a few who come to mind. They are the very attractive, joyful future. :-)





Monday 10 June 2013