59th sayings of light and love (St John of the Cross)

This way of life contains very little business and bustling, and demands mortification of the will more than knowledge. The less one takes of things and pleasures the farther one advances along this way.

Why is the Immaculate Conception celebrated today and not on Saturday?

 

Today, in Ireland at least, we are celebrating the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, which fell yesterday on the 2nd Sunday in Advent.  According to the General Instruction in the Divine Office (Page xcvi) it should transfer to Saturday, not Monday.  There is a reference to “Norms for the Liturgical Year”, n. 5. 

So I went looking for that on line and I found two versions, both dated 14 Feb 1969. 

This version on EWTN library site says Saturday:

5. Because of its special importance, the Sunday celebration gives way only to solemnities or feasts of the Lord. The Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, however, take precedence over all solemnities and feasts of the Lord. Solemnities occurring on these Sundays are observed on the Saturdays preceding.

And this one  from the Liturgy Office of the Bishops Conference for England and Wales says Monday. 

5. Because of its special importance, the Sunday celebration gives way only to solemnities or feasts of the Lord. The Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, however, take precedence over all solemnities and feasts of the Lord.  Solemnities occurring on these Sundays are transferred to the following Monday except in the case of their occurrence on Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday) or on Easter Sunday.

What's the story? Usually when you amend a set of norms you reissue them with a new date.  I presume it is something to do with the introduction of Saturday vigil Masses which make it problemmatic to transfer a solemnity. 

Noticed this in the Norms as well:

58 For the pastoral advantage of the faithful, it is permissible to observe on the Sundays in Ordinary Time those celebrations that fall during the week and have special appeal to the devotion of the faithful, provided the celebrations take precedence over these Sundays in the Table of Liturgical Days. The Mass for such celebrations may be used at all the Masses at which the people are present.

Wonder how many priests ever chose to do that.  SS Peter and Paul could be candidate.  And plenty of others.

I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking.

Another ghastly mistake by Pope Francis

SUNDERLAND?

It's the right thing to do, because it's about the children

Dear God, who will rid us of this troublesome Taoiseach?

I was listening to the Great Unbearable on the radio this morning as he was asked to comment on the abduction of two innocent Roma children by Irish State authorities on the dubious premise that they had blonde hair.

"This is about children, it's about children."

Oh, so that's okay then.  This is one of those lines that politicians run to when all else fails, and when Enda is being interviewed in public you can rest assured that all else has already failed.  Other fall back lines are:  "It's the right thing to do" and "This is about protecting lives", usually before you're whacked with a Mickey Finn.

So it's about children. 

Presumably when children were taken off unwed mothers and put up for adoption in foreign countries it was about children.

Presumably when children were sent to industrial schools because their parents were poor or their mother had died it was about children.

Now of course we're told we must wait while An Garda Siochana and the HSE investigate themselves before we form any conclusions or comment.

It might have been helpful if the same Guards and HSE had waited, investigate and formed some conclusions before snatching the children in the first place.

Let's have a look at Section 12 of the Child Care Act, 1991, the legal provision used by the Guards.

12.—(1) Where a member of the Garda Síochána has reasonable grounds for believing that—
(a) there is an immediate and serious risk to the health or welfare of a child, and
(b) it would not be sufficient for the protection of the child from such immediate and serious risk to await the making of an application for an emergency care order by a health board under section 13,
the member, accompanied by such other persons as may be necessary, may, without warrant, enter (if need be by force) any house or other place (including any building or part of a building, tent, caravan or other temporary or moveable structure, vehicle, vessel, aircraft or hovercraft) and remove the child to safety.

An "immediate and serious risk".  Being blonde carries some risks - but I'm not sure sufficient to warrant [Ed: they don't need a warrant] police action.

Remember during the referendum on children the No side warned about State overreach and intrusion into the family. 

And you're not even safe in a hover craft.  Perhaps a hot air balloon. 

You bet your hat, or there but for the grace of God

You gotta feel for this guy (Ed: well there's a lot to feel).

He weighs 37 stone.  When he was flying from Wales to Ireland the airline made him pay for two seats.  But when he checked in he was given a window seat and an aisle seat, with someone else sitting in between.  (Those aren't travel pillows!)

On the way back his seats were in two different rows.

And, thanks to the budget model, he didn't even get two inflight meals!

Protestant bishop defends denominational education and does it well

There's a good piece in the Irish Times by Archbishop Richard Clarke, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland. He'll have another one in next week.


An air of weary defensiveness seems to permeate discussion among church people on the purpose and future of an educational system that is faith-based in any respect, let alone any structure that is manifestly denominational.

Much of the wariness is due, I suspect, to the relentless assertion in the public square of the idea that faith is somehow an additional, optional appendage to “ordinary life”. That is a flawed and disingenuous philosophy.

The absence of any echo of religious faith in the public square does not bring about the absence of all ideology or public conviction, even if this conviction is now in something other than any religious perspective. Very few people can live their lives with no convictions or principles; to do so is to live aimlessly, disjointedly and truly “pointlessly”.

Removal of the transcendent

We need also to remember that some of the most dehumanising political philosophies ever to exist have enjoyed the monopoly of the public space and even unrestricted adulation in the forceful removal of the transcendent from the psyche of the public place.

There is no neutral value system that is the default position for “normal” humankind. Religious faith should not expect to be the only voice to be heard in public. It is, however, a delusion to believe that the only natural state for humankind is to hear no ideological voices of any kind. Proper education cannot, therefore, be an ideology-free or

value-free zone, but this does not of itself make it narrowly propagandist. The education of children will always have some value-system at its heart. It would be dangerous if it were otherwise.

We need also to bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of the population of the Irish Republic admits to membership of a faith community.

A recent survey was undertaken within national schools under Church of Ireland patronage and it clearly indicated that more than 90 per cent were very happy with the religious aspect of Church of Ireland national schools.
As we seek to chart an educational future for Ireland, our starting point should be that there is at present no particular reason to move away from an educational system which, certainly at primary school level, functions broadly in accordance with the general approval of parents and is reflective of the religious demographics of the country.
An educational “mixed economy” is a perfectly reasonable scenario. There should certainly be different types of school, some of which will be avowedly non-faith in educational method, and others will clearly encompass a faith content that has real meaning and is more than a cursory nod in the direction of religion.
Wider community

In origin, the rationale that lay behind specifically “Church of Ireland schools” was for the protection of a minority community within the state. The ethos of the Church of Ireland school is now regarded not only as of crucial value to the children of the Church of Ireland but also as of worth for a wider community, and for a common good.

Most schools under Church of Ireland patronage have an enrolment representative of a wider community. Far from an effort at proselytisation or conversion, there is now the widespread belief throughout the Church of Ireland that this particular way of being a “faith school” is a valuable educational approach for others, in addition to our own community. The ethos for which we must always strive is a wholesome place, sited at some distance from a crude indoctrination on the one hand, and a vapid, vague congeniality on the other: a “faith-culture” with a definable element of specific religious faith and commitment in the character of a school but also a way of life that unselfconsciously reflects spiritual values, priorities and standards.

At the heart of this ethos will be the RE curriculum and the place of worship, and religious education cannot simply be phenomenological in approach, as though “religion” were a moderately interesting specimen on a laboratory bench.
It is not indoctrination or brainwashing to present religious faith as something that is central to the way one lives one’s entire life; this is to fall into that trap that religious faith is somehow an optional extra in which an individual may indulge in his or her spare time if deemed worth the bother.

Reading the Irish Times is like pulling teeth

Today in The Irish Slimes:

"Think, for a moment, of a person in Ireland who needs a tooth removed. Imagine if they had to plan to travel to England: they had to save money, book flights, book a babysitter, locate a dentist, get directions. Then – all on an empty stomach and in a rush after a procedure – they had to bundle themselves, tired and bleeding, onto their non-transferable flight home. No you can’t imagine it because it is ridiculous. It would be ridiculous to put anyone through such nonsense. Yet women in Ireland must live in that ridiculous world.
I am not equating having an abortion with having a tooth out."

Funny how you can write a whole paragraph comparing going to England for an abortion with going to England to have a tooth removed and then have the neck to declare you're not equating having an abortion with having a tooth out. 

And really, you're not, for in your demented world, having a tooth out is much worse as you're losing something you value.