A Treasure To Be Shared

This Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, a processional crucifix purchased to honour the memory of Father Michael Birch will be blessed. On Friday 26 November we mark the fifth anniversary of the death of our beloved Fr Michael Birch. In honour of his long years of service and ministry, both Anglican and Catholic, we have purchased a beautiful English brass and enamel processional cross in his memory. The cross will be blessed and put to use on Advent Sunday, 28 November, leading the way as The Great Litany is chanted in procession. Please pray for Fr Michael's soul, and for his wife, Noella, who remains a much-loved part of our parish family. If you wish to make a donation towards the cost of this cross, please contact Fr Kenyon: http://www.victoriaordinariate.com/about.html [Scroll down at the Victoria Ordinariate 'About' page for email contact] David, a member of the Latin Mass community, is installing a protective wooden frame to support the proper storage of the crucif...

I. Bad Stewardship https://www.ncregister.com/blog/report-vatican-set-to-lose-more-than-100-million-on-failed-london-property-deal The Vatican stands to lose about £100 million ($136 million) when it completes the pending sale of a London property at the center of an ongoing fraud trial at the Vatican, according to a report in the Financial Times ($136,000,000 dollars! That's a lot of food for families, a lot of medicine for hospitals, a lot of beds for the homeless) . II. Bad Behaviour https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/location-based-apps-pose-security The use of location-based hookup apps by officials or employees of Church institutions could present serious security problems for the Church, even at the level of the Holy See’s diplomatic and international relations. [...] The use of any hookup app within the Vatican City State’s secured areas could pose a security risk for the Holy See. And use of the Grindr app among Vatican residents and officials and within the non-public areas...

Judgement Day Is fraternal correction really so complicated? We're hamstrung by the need to preserve reputation, or so it seems, and unable to correct in-house problems created by errant brothers and sisters who flaunt their defiance by advocating behaviours rejected by the Church. Jesus speaking to the disciples (St. Matthew 18:15-20). If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be d...

A non-Christian friend complained recently how difficult it is to maintain hope in "a post-capitalist world with so many people suffering". I would have offered reason for hope by pointing to an eternity of joy with Christ, which is ultimately more real than the frustrations of this life. However, as mentioned, my friend does not share the same hope found in Christ. This friend's plea inspired a few thoughts, mostly that the realization that faith really does make a difference in one's life. The weak hope provided by material distractions does not (cannot) endure. A reliance on fleeting distractions for relief from one misery or another is a foolish expectation that terminates daily in disappointment. Faith in God, by contrast, illuminates. God illuminates the soul, the heart and the mind with His grace, His life poured out for the willing soul who opens his or her life in faith to the transcendent beauty, goodness and truth of God, through the word of God (Holy Scrip...

H/T Anglican Ordinariate Forum http://www.brookstone-tx.com/client/our-lady-of-walsingham-new-education-building/ This... ...will eventually become this ... . Praise be to God!

ACS Image A helpful resource from Eastbourne. Authored by Andrew Leach. Edited here by Gilbert. https://eastbourneordinariate.org.uk/divine-worship-daily-office-a-short-guide Divine Worship : Daily Office (Commonwealth Edition) — A short guide Divine Worship: Daily Office (Commonwealth Edition) contains Morning and Evening Prayer from the Anglican prayer book tradition, now approved for use in the Catholic Church through the Personal Ordinariates. The Commonwealth Edition is principally for use in the Ordinariates of Our Lady of Walsingham (UK) and Our Lady of the Southern Cross (Australia), although there are prayers which can be used in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter (USA and Canada) If you’re new to the Daily Office Use Prime in the morning (ideally before 11am) and Compline in the evening (ideally just before retiring). Use the yellow ribbon : start Prime at p397 and simply follow through the Office to the end of page 402. For Compline start at p421 and follow through the...

You are not alone. If your cause be just, God is on your side and will bring you through the darkness of unjust treatment. But, if you are in the wrong, God will shepherd you and call you to repentance. Possessing a heart softened by His grace, He will receive you into His light. You will want to ask yourself, 'what I am called to learn from trials and unjust treatment?' You must commit to praying for those who mistreat you. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Though your persecutors' behaviour may disgust you, and cause you much suffering, you must love them and pray for their salvation. It may be that you ask God to provide them with opportunities to reform their lives, to cease behaving as tyrants, to stop being emotional vampires, to stop weaponizing their wounds to attack others. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not se...

The Pillar has an interesting take on the upcoming USCCB committee elections. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/a-day-at-the-races-predicting-the A day at the races: Predicting the USCCB elections https://www.usccb.org/ Analysis JD Flynn and Ed. Condon Race 2: Chairman-elect, Committee on Divine Worship  Bishop Steven Lopes of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter vs. Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski of St. Louis Ed’s prediction: Rozanski JD’s prediction: Lopes Ed says: A race notable for the oddness of the matchup and handicaps on both runners, pitting a bishop who doesn’t usually say Mass according to the ordinary Roman Rite (Ahem... doesn't the USCCB also include Eastern Rite hierarchs?) against an archbishop whose most public sacramental intervention was ruled invalidating by Rome and the committee he’s now looking to lead. Lopes will certainly come into this as a dark horse; right out of the gate, he has not spent much time in the conference as a bishop at all, and th...

Awroo? One voice, a Vatican official, in a letter replying to his fellow Englishman, tells us that the older Mass was abrogated. Another voice, a papal voice, says 'no', the older Mass was never abrogated. The Vatican’s liturgy chief (Archbishop Arthur Roche) has said that the Traditional Latin Mass was “abrogated by Pope Saint Paul VI.” Archbishop Arthur Roche made the comment in a letter dated Aug. 4 to the English Cardinal Vincent Nichols. - CNA / Gloria.tv As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted. - Pope Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum  (SP) Divine Worship, the Mass of the Ordinariate, resolves most if not all the tensions that people on opposing sides of the liturgical debate are experiencing. Divine Worship is a middle way that excels at the actual goals of the Second Vatican Cou...

The Butchart Gardens, Victoria, BC | Afternoon Tea https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/food-drink/how-to-make-the-perfect-cup-of-tea-british-standards-institution-issues-new-guide-31078079.html So to make a proper brew (according to the British Standards Institute): You need a pot made of porcelain, and there must be at least two grams of tea to every 100ml of water. The temperature can’t go beyond 85 degrees when served but should be above 60 degrees for "optimum flavour and sensation". The perfect pot size is apparently between 74mm and 78mm wide, and 83mm and 87mm tall. Since the average tea bag contains 1.5g of tea leaves, at least two tea bags should be used for a small pot, and four for a large one. If making tea in the mug pour in milk after boiling water. But if pouring already steeped tea from a pot add milk to the cup first. Timing is important. According to the BSI the perfect brewing time is six minutes (also known as steeping) which extracts the flavours from...

Loss and Gain (1848) by (Saint) John Henry Newman Loss and Gain is a philosophical novel by John Henry Newman published in 1848. It depicts the culture of Oxford University in the mid-Victorian era and the conversion of a young student to Roman Catholicism. The novel went through nine editions during Newman's lifetime, and thirteen printings. It was the first work Newman published after his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1845. - WP Chapter 17: from the Newman Reader FREEBORN was not the person to let go a young man like Charles without another effort to gain him; and in a few days he invited him to take tea at his lodgings. Charles went at the appointed time, through the wet and cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance litt...

... the assaults of confused men. I would imagine that much of this blog's readership does not frequent the online pages of the National Catholic Reporter, known to many as The Fishwrap, or The National Schismatic Reporter, or The National Catholic Distorter, or The Harbor of Heretics, etc. An article by a Monsignor Kevin Irwin - s ee credits at the bottom of the quoted text - leaves little doubt that divisive and shabby thinking is all too common among too many of our shepherds. Monsignor Irwin is upset that the first draft - a leaked draft - of the US Bishops' proposed document on the Eucharist lands short of his expectations. https://www.scribd.com/document/536574988/USCCB-Draft-Document-on-Eucharist-The-Pillar We should recall, dear readers, that Monsignor Irwin is writing for the NCR crowd, which has a readership that frequently descends into a full embrace of heterodoxy. It is a readership that has dedicated itself to a forum that is the epitome of irrelevance. The draft...

Endymion (April 10, 1818) by John Keats (1795 – 1821) - from the Preface [...] The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages. I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece, and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewell. https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/john-keats/poetry/text/poetry#endymion Lines 1 - 24 A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the ear...