Hibernation

Firstly, I should like to reassure all those kind people who have enquired as to my whereabouts. No I haven't been kidnapped again or laid low by monastic fever! It was most kind of you to think of me. A special word of thanks to those who have prayed for me over the last few weeks.

After much thought, like my good friend Matt Doyle, I have decided to give blogging a break.

Please keep me in your prayers as I continue to grapple with life and try to understand the Lord's will for me.

Comments Off - Sorry!

Quarr Abbey

Thank you for the prayers for my exams - I passed them all. Thus today I am off to do a months internship at Quarr Abbey. My previous photo diary of Quarr can be seen by following the links here.

I had hoped to write a little on why I was going to Quarr for a whole month, but time has run out and if I do not leave now I shan't be there until late tonight!

I have a fair few prayer requests for the month, if there are any more do feel free to leave a comment and I promise I shall remember that intention in my prayers.

Comments may take a little longer to be published as I shan't have access to a computer often - apologies for this. There will be no blogging whilst I am at Quarr of course.

in Xto

Joee Blogs

Westminster Cathedral

Today I went with my family to Westminster Cathedral for 10:30am Holy Mass. It was excellent! I went to Confession during Mass and then did my little route around the cathedral taking in all the chapels; the shrine to Bishop Challoner; the Tomb of St John Southworth; even kissing the statue of St Peter to get the Indulgence!

I do like Westminster Cathedral - it is quite a gem, and architecturally awesome. In some ways, architecturally at least, it bares some similarities to Quarr Abbey - being entirely built from red brick.


The choir was superb at Mass today - indeed as always! Mass was beautifully sung and Aaron Spinelli read Gospel and then at the end of Mass sang the Ita Missa Est.

Nicely relaxed and strengthenned with Holy Communion I stood at the back of the Cathedral and thought just how beautiful the Cathedral is, and I thought thank God the Cathedral has not been reordered. I understand only relatively recently, the present administrator successfully fought off rather loud rumblings to reorder the sanctuary - something which in time I believe we will be awfully grateful to him for.

Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, Coalville, Leicester

This monastic post makes a little change from my Quarr Abbey fever! A wee while back, I had the privilege of visiting Mount St Bernard Abbey, England's only Cistercian monastery, for a few hours with a friend. There is not very much on the internet about this rather fun monastery so here are my photos with some text taken from the Benedictine Yearbook 2006 and some comments under my photos.

The first English novices entered the Monastery of Lulworth, Dorset, in 1795. In 1817 the Community found it necessary to leave England and took up residence in the Abbey of Melleray in Brittany. There a large number of English and Irish vocations were attracted to cross the Channel and they numbered half the Community of 195 monks.

After the Revolution of 1831 the English and Irish monks were expelled, some remaining in exile in France, the majority going to Ireland. In 1835 the Cistercian chaplains at Stapehill Convent arranged with Bishop Walsh of the Midland District and Abrose de Lisle the foundation of Mount Saint Bernard in Charnwood Forest.

English monks came over from Ireland and France and in 1837 the first Monastery was opened, deigned by William Railton. In 1844 this was superseded by a larger neo-Gothic Monastery designed by A W Pugin. In 1848 Mount Saint Bernard was raised to the status of an Abbey with the first English Abbot since the Reformation.

- The Benedictine Yearbook 2006

Mount St Bernard's is a truely beautiful monastery, located in quiet secluded English countryside. As you arrive you drive down a long road facing a prominent and visually striking statue of Christ.

You then turn into a small semi-gravel car park. The monastery itself is simply gorgeous. The church, designed by Pugin, is in a marvellous Gothic style.

Necessary building additions to the monastery have been ever so tasteful in keeping with the original monastery. It really is a gorgeous and impressive monastery complex.

On the hill next to the monastery complex, there is a steep walk which takes in aspects of the life of Christ. I am not sure if this is a sort of Rosary walk as I cannot remember. It is wonderful though, as I hope you can see from the following couple of photos:

This prominent crucifix is on the very peak of the hill by the monastery!

The monastery also has a lovely shop manned by the monks themselves. There are some wonderful books including some second hand cheaper books which always gets me excited (being a student)!

The community also make a lot of pottery, which they sell at a very reasonable, affordable price. I bought a little milk jug to take back home as a souvenir. It can be seen in on the table in front of this lay brother, who very kindly posed for a photo. He insisted that the wee crucifix I was buying be blessed by one of the priest-monks before I could buy it, which I appreciated greatly.

Mount St Bernard have a website which can be seen here.

If you wish to use these photos, please feel most welcome to do so.

Motu Blogrio

Being now free from exams I thought I would have a play with the colours on the blog.

Perhaps one could think think of the previous colour scheme as extraordinary and this new one as ordinary. Both however are to be deemed acceptable.

If you have an attachment to the old colour scheme and think there are problems with the new one, please do let me know via the combox what you think. If it is not deemed a success I shall change back to the previous colour scheme in 3 weeks time and arrange to meet a more expert HTML blog designer such as Philip!

Please do leave me an honest comment in the combox - I shall be very liberal in allowing all comments even very negative ones!

Exams and prayers

Today I had my last exam. I left a wee post on the blog last night asking for prayers. I was really quite touched when I opened my emails this morning to see so many prayers for me in the combox of that post:

10 Comments:

anon said...

prayers for you

9:05 PM

Mark said...

Oh good luck, Joee! My prayers, and God bless!

Have a good 'internship'! :-D

9:32 PM

Jeron said...

I'll remember you this evening during Eucharistic Adoration.

10:00 PM

Paulinus said...

Will pray for you at compline tonight.

P

10:42 PM

Fr. Larive's workers said...

GOOD LUCK

11:32 PM

Andrew said...

I thought it was orare pro me, but then my Latin is really rusty... good luck Joee, may St. Thomas Aquinas pray for you

1:32 AM

Kaila said...

I'll pray for you as well.

Kaila

2:18 PM

EJVideo said...

prayers!!!

2:35 PM

Mac McLernon said...

Prayers being offered to St Joseph of Cupertino... not to mention St Luke.

3:34 PM

Be assured I shall pray for you all too. Lifted up by so many prayers, the exam went OK. I find out next week whether I have passed them all or not and then please God if I have passed I shall be off to a certain monastery for a one month internship which I am very very excited about. More on that later...

Womenpriests ... yawwwn!

There is a fascinating 20 second video half way down the front page of the womenpriest website in which a womenpriest answers the question "haven't you excommunicated yourself?". Her answer is so awesomely unsound that I wanted to put the video on this blog but cannot find it on youtube.

The link is here.

The womanpriest (they call themselves this) says excommunication is laughable and that all that is important is that she follows her "own truth". Hmm... somehow I don't think that's quite what Christ said!

NOT FOR GIRLS!

I get a fair few hits on the blog from people who have searched for "women priest", "LCWR" and the likes. In fact if you search for "Joan Chichester" [sic] you get my blog as the first thing that comes up. So for all them womanypriests out there stumbling across my blog -








This is for you...










Got it?!




Women cannot be ordained to the priesthood. End of story. No more discussion. Ever.




Hat tip Catholic and Loving it!

My last exam tomorrow...

... providing I don't have to do retakes!

Orate pro me

(I hope that's right - it should read pray for me in Latin)! :D

If I pass this one and the others I have done, then I will be off to a certain monastery whose Abbot has very kindly agreed to let me do an internship for a month. Please God I'll pass the exams so that I can go do a "month as a monk" as it is sometimes known.

I hope to post a little more on why I have asked to do an internship and how grateful I am to the Abbot of previously mentioned monastery for accepting me. It really was a nervous day when I was waiting for the reply as to whether I had been accepted for an internship but praise God the good Abbot said yes.

In haste, back to revision...

Joee

Exams and Our Lady Queen of Peace

No blogging during the last few days as I have been doing end of year written exams.

They were not much fun but thank God they're almost over. I was fortunate to be lifted up with lots of prayers, even from a novice at Parkminster Charterhouse which is rather special. He had written the dates of my exams down so that he would remember to pray for me on those days.

Also I was enormously privileged to have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered for my intentions by a certain priest.

I developed a little devotion to Our Lady Queen of Peace: whenever I would feel nervous I would pray to Our Lady Queen of Peace and the anxiety would melt away.

A friend told me last year that he would always start the exams with the sign of the Cross as though to offer the exam time up to God so I did this too. At the end of the exams I went to Mass and made a thanksgiving. Only one more exam to do and then I am off to a certain monastery to do a one month internship - more on that later.

This is just a nice photo I dug up. It is of the altar at the Oratory House in Rednal which is the Birmingham Oratorian's retreat house, also where Cardinal Newman is buried. It has such a beautiful massive life size crucifix above the altar - it really is quite an amazing chapel.

Hehehe

Hat tip to Philip Andrews for this wee blooper which appeared in the local Anglican parish magazine.

• Please place your donations in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

Philip also has this snazzy picture thing at the top of his blog - I really would love to know how to make my blog look more trendy like his. I'll have to ask him for his tips!

Church Architecture

Andrew of Unam Sanctam blog has a very amusing post about church architecture which features great photos like the one above! Of course the photo above is of a disastrously designed Catholic church I'm ashamed to say!

The Holy Sacrifice

The above is a black and white photo of extraordinary Mass at the Brompton Oratory taken with my lens.

(OK it's not a photo I took on my camera, but if I had a heavenly camera perhaps this is the image it would capture.)

What I have been up to

Blogging - or lack of...

For the last few months I have been on placement and was both busy with studies and did not have very good internet connection. Hence the blogging became a bit thin on the ground. I had a good time on placement and it helped firm up some ideas for the future. Check out the picture on the right - awesomeness!

Medical Studies
I am rather disillusioned with medicine as it is practised in this country.

One night during the last week of my placement, I was on the ward until rather late preparing a patient presentation. As I was fetching the relevant patients' notes from the nurses station and scanning through them, the nurses were bitching about one of the patients in the bed closest to the nurses station.

This patient was in fact one of the patients I was to present the next day, and talking to the family about her condition I had to fight a tear coming to my eye. It was a tragic and desperate situation the patient was in.

Praise God I had a good rapport with the patient and the patients' family and we talked for a good while, which I feel helped them with things.

Nevertheless as I sat scanning this patients' notes and listening to the endless gossip about this patient, I was very close to snapping at the nurses.

I wanted to tell them that they should think of each patient as an Alter Christus or at least an Alter Meus. I wanted to tell them that one day their mother or father, brother or sister might be sitting in that same hospital bed. Perhaps in a few years they would be diagnosed with the same illness that patient has and be in that hospital bed, incapacitated.

I did not say any of this and instead walked away. As I was walking away I saw a pornography magazine which belonged to one of the nurses.

It was a tragic last week at the hospital.

Dr Doyle
Matt Doyle is now a real Doctor, joining the ranks of excellent Catholic Doctors such as Tim, Paulinus and Dadwithnoisykids and of course many others who do not have blogs.

I really must join the Catholic Doctors Guild one of these days.

Today is the Feast of...

St Peter Julian Eymard

- the Apostle of the Eucharist!!!

So Happy St Peter Julian's day!

St Peter Julian founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament (aka Blessed Sacrament Fathers). From The Eymard Library, St Eymard is described thus:

Saint Peter Julian Eymard (1811-1868), the priest of the Eucharist, a deeply contemplative and apostolic person dedicated his entire life to Eucharistic prayer, concern for the poor, and preaching on the Eucharist. To extend his mission, he founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament and the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament. Saint Peter Julian Eymard's spiritual legacy is well represented by The Eymard Library, a small set of books rich in Eucharistic spirituality and religious insight. Through his writings, his love for love for the Eucharist reaches across the ages to become the love of all.

I wrote the following in January having returned from a wee retreat to see my friend James, who is a novice with the Fathers. I did not publish it at the time so here it is slightly updated and amended. It is still in note form in parts, and a little long too! Sorry!

Carl Bloch's Last Supper

"Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said,

'Take, eat; this is my body.'

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying,

'Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'"

- Matthew 26:26-28

The Blessed Sacrament Fathers have 3 houses in the UK: one in Glasgow on the outskirts of the city in one of the poorest areas, another is the Blessed Sacrament Shrine in Liverpool which has Daily Adoration and lots of Confessions. The third is in the centre of Dublin and is run along similar lines to the Shrine in Liverpool.

[Ed: The shrine in Dublin has anonymous confessions on tap for priests and religious. It is said a fair few priests owe their vocations to this facility.]

Sadly the Blessed Sacrament Fathers have suffered dearly in the changes post Vatican II, but unlike some of the other religious orders, the charism of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers is very much worthwhile and relevent. [I hope with the Motu Proprio, there may be a healthy revitalisation of the order in the Western world. [Certainly on my visit to the shrine I met a sincere love and genuine devotion to St Peter Julian and at least one very holy traditional priest. Another of their priests is an ex-Parkminster Carthusian.]

Perhaps it isn't my place to say, but having read a little of St Peter Julian's stunning work, as far as I can see, to rediscover the charism of St Peter Julian is get the Holy Communion and Confession to as many people as possible. In the average parish in the country or in the suburbs of the city, there is a morning Mass and Confessions on Saturday evening. There are a few Masses on a Sunday.

I think the Blessed Sacrament charism is a refined ministry, a sort of sacrament factory if you will [Ed: gosh I was really liberal in January - I would never use that sort of lingo now!]. A local equivalent to this would be similar to Westminster Cathedral, where there are confessions daily and a healthy devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in the Blessed Sacrament side chapel (seen on the right). The priests at Westminster Cathedral are advised that in the Confessional if there are bigger issues to explore with the penitent, to get them to arrange to meet at another time at Clergy House to talk about these things.

People these days go to Confession in their own parish less and less. Fr Blogs is now known as Fr Joee or even just by his first name - Joee, and you meet him down in the parish club or down the pub. Thus you are unlikely to go to him for Confession, he's more your mate that you parish priest. Anyway the average parish priest has his hands full and even overflowing with workload to have confessions on tap every day. This in turn makes the parishioner feel embarrassed to ask the priest to hear his or her confession.

I think this is where St Peter Julian's charism would flourish. As little canonries of priests and brothers running inner city parishes where people work and spend their day time. From St Peter Julians' works it would seem he had in mind priests living in community not only spiritually devoted but actively devoted to the Sacraments - in particular the Eucharist and Confession.

The Blessed Sacrament Fathers are biggin' it up in South East Asia. Their newest recruit to the English province is James Cadman [Ed: now Brother James] pictured below, who is soon to continue his studies in the Philippines where the Fathers are flourishing. Here he is below, with a very holy priest and Blessed Sacrament Father - Father Peter - whom I found really quite edifying. [Ed: Wearing cassocks and looking trad of course! Note the biretta! And this was in January in the pre-Motu Proprio era! SOUND! A huge picture of St Peter Julian is behind them and the presbytery dog is in the foreground!!!]


Here is a photo taken from the inside of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers' chapel in Glasgow, which I took when visiting him - very beautiful.

St Peter Julian, pray for your novice - Brother James.

Feminist Nuns Support UN Abortion Treaties.

There are two conferences of nuns in America, one is called the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious pictured on the left. It has a novitiate of on average a whopping 10% of its total members.

They look like nuns, talk like nuns and do things nuns should do - such as pray.

The other is the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), at which there isn't a veil in sight as can be seen from the photo on the right. It has a novitiate of 0.01%. The LCWR has almost halved in number since 1960, now having only 65,000 members. That may sound like a lot of members but the average age is 70 years old and they're only getting older.

Fr Chris Basden has a good article on the two nuns' conferences and other things here.

The LCWR has done many wacky things in the past but according to Fionnait Sradag, whose article: Feminist Nuns Support UN Abortion Treaties appears on a blog called Hidden Ireland, they are now withering away the days promoting and supporting abortion. A little of the article is below:

UNANIMA International, which boasts fifteen well known religious orders as official members, promotes United Nations Pro-Abortion Conventions such as CEDAW, which mandates the legalization of abortion on demand, as well as prostitution and homosexual marriage.

During my investigations of the orders that are members of UNANIMA, I found sisters concerned about Global Warming, “promoting” women, (Whatever that means!) and working for nuclear disarmament, freeing the terrorists held at Guantanimo, ending torture, etc.

[Continue reading...]

Exclusive: First "Extraordinary" Ordinations after Motu Proprio release

Exclusive photos of the extraordinay ordination follow...







shortly...






but first brace yourself...






lest you should fall off your computer chair in sheer excitement!






It's worth the wait I assure you....




We can't wait I hear you saying!




Bring on everything extraordinary for the ...





oh come on Joee get on with it!





Oh OK!





...






here they are:

Women Anointed Catholic Deacons, Priest in S.B. Extraordinary Ordination

Well, I told you I wouldn't disappoint! :D

More juicey photos and a totally unsound report can be read here. The comments which follow the article are interesting, as they all trash the article as wildly unsound and anti-Catholic.

Here are some extracts from the article, with a few minor (!) additions in red:

Sunday’s [mock] ordination, witnessed by more than 100 invited guests, took place at an interfaith center [ooo yumm! Joee Blogs Heaven! Bring on the interfaith!] in Santa Barbara that reporters agreed not to name in exchange for an invitation to attend. (Reporters also agreed not to print the names or orders of the nuns in attendance.) [My highly accurate nundar was telling me there were trendy nuns in the vicinity!]

Besides their gender deviating from the Catholic priest norm [thus making it ontologically impossible for ordination to happen], neither the [so-called] priest nor the two [so-called] deacons [so-called] ordained on Sunday — who are scheduled for re-ordination [re-ordination eh? hmm interesting [lack of] theology] as [so-called] priests on July 28 — is celibate [well there's a surprise]. Norma Coon, of San Diego, has been married for 40 years [that would make her mid-60s at the youngest]. Toni Tortorilla, of Portland, lives with her lesbian partner. Cordero, a newly anointed priest who lives in San Luis Obispo, is a former nun who has been married for 30 years to a former Jesuit priest [so she's at least 60 odd as well - get the pattern of age range? That generation of trendy people - I can't compete with their trendiness!].

[ It's hard not to typecast the womenpriest wannna-be's as ex liberal nuns when they really are ex liberal nuns!].

The [so-called] ceremony, which took place on the feast day of Mary Magdalene [oh here we go with the Mary Magdalene Da Vinci Code mumbo jumbo hear say made up lack of historical sense - I'm surprised they didn't bring on the Pope Joan crap and ordain an ex nun as womanpope for fun too! Actually there's an idea that'd be interesting - actually I shouldn't give them ideas ], also differed from the standard Catholic ordination in the names the presiding [so-called] clergy used for God, who is ordinarily referred to as “the Father.” The female [so-called] priests instead referred to “Mother and Father” [ just rushing to the toilet to be sick ] and to “God/de.” [sounds like a German web address] (The latter is pronounced like “God,” with the silent, extra letters hinting at a goddess that those in the [so-called] ceremony declined to refer to explicitly.) [formal idolatry?] Jesus Christ retained his masculine identity, however.

[It goes on... some womanpriest talks some mumbo jumbo...]

“The meaningfulness of the Catholic tradition to me is the long history of mysticism in the church,” said [so-called] priest Victoria Rue, who also teaches theology and theater at San Jose State University [blimee what sort of degree does she have to teach there?!]. [When I am head of the Inquisition, I'll look her up - she's marked!] She finds particular inspiration in the women mystics of the Middle Ages. “ [so-called] Priesthood,” added Rue, “is about leadership within the community.” [ No comment needed here - for unsoundness this scores 10/10 ] There are many types of ministries [how anglican!] to which people are called, she said, concluding, “I feel called to the ministry of the liturgy,” which she described as communal [so-called] worship.

I might have overdone it on the red additions, but it was the only way it came close to passing the Joee Blogs soundness and quality test.

For some great posts on "the womenpriest lies" check out Fr Stephanos' blog here.

This is a No Smoking Blog

In England a new law requires all public places including Catholic churches to have a no smoking sign. Recognising that no one smokes in Catholic churches anyway, some devious and witty priests have begun putting up signs like the one above, in Latin.

Just in case there is any doubt, mine is a no smoking blog please!

I wonder if I could put a sign like this up in the gathering-corner-worship-space-area in the multifaith prayer room at my university?

More Quarr!

Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight is a Benedictine Monastery of the Solesmes Congregation. The architecture is beautiful and there are some photos of this and other things in my photo-diary of my Easter retreat there. I am fond of Quarr and couldn't resist writing a little more about the Abbey and linking the following two videos.

Here is a video about Quarr by EJ whose monastic blog sadly doesn't seem to exist anymore, so I cannot link him.



And here is a nice if slightly poor quality video of the monks at Quarr singing part of the Office in choir, taken by a family of visitors. It gives some sense of the atmosphere. It gets me all excited watching this!



This is also an opportunity to mention that Quarr Abbey has a blog, which I have just been looking at. It features posts about the community of latter day as well as photos of the monastery, to complement the Quarr Abbey website. Well worth a browse!

Update: I came across an excellent blog a couple of days ago called Carpe Canum by an Isle of Wight Catholic called Philip Andrews, who is very much a traditional Catholic. He goes to Mass at St Cecilia's Ryde, somewhere I have not yet visited but should very much like to see. His most recent post is on Catholic Isle of Wight and well worth a look at. I hadn't realised just how many good Catholic places there are to see on the Isle of Wight - including Quarr Abbey of course!

Some liturgical things in the post-MP era

In this fabulous, wonderful, uplifting and certainly exciting post-Motu Proprio era, Fr Ray Blake has the following two photos under which is a post on why there should be a crucifix on the altar during Mass. I do wish I could put things as succinctly as he does, to merely state common sense, that there should be a prominent crucifix on the altar.

"The first arrangement is bland and neutral, it could be anything, a municipal hall, a gymnasium, Christ is certainly not at its heart, in fact the flowers seem to have the most prominent place, as so often they do in this type of arrangement, whilst the other picture is quite different, here the crucifix dominates.

Pope Benedict spends much of his "Spirit of the Liturgy" talking about the importance of the centrality of the image of Christ crucified, on the altar.

In a way one can say that throughout all his writings Benedict has always stressed the very centrality of Christ.

The first arrangement intends to focus on the priest who moves from chair to ambo to altar, in the traditional arrangement it is the crucifix that is important, even when the priest stands before it, he merely points to Christ. Important as he is, his importance is centred on his function, his service, not his personality."

- Fr Ray Blake

Fr Ray in turn took the pictures from The New Liturgical Movement. In a post entitled "not suited for the older form of Mass?" Give me a break!, Fr Z used the above two photos to repost his video of a plain altar being converted into a beautiful and far more reverential altar - SOOOUUUUND and great fun to watch!

La métamorphose d'un autel
Uploaded by CHRIST-REDEMPTEUR

On a similar liturgical matter, here are two excellent articles on why the laity must not adopt the orans position during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, with particular regard to during the reciting of the Our Father by the laity in the Ordinary form of the Mass. The orans position is the very ancient and specific posture which the priest uses when he says the Our Father during Mass. Amongst other things, the orans position was in fact "officially and specifically rejected by the Holy See" along with holding hands during the Our Father and a litany of other silly 1970s things.