Happy New Year

Every blessing and good wish to you all for the New Year.

Let us entrust 2015 to the care of the Mother of God. May she watch over us, protect the Church and teach us to be ever more faithful to her Son, Christ our Lord.

Happy New Year

To all the members of the Fraternity, and to all who read my blog - the extended family, I wish you all every blessing and grace for this New Year.  May Mary, the Holy Mother of God, whose solemnity is the first we celebrate this year, watch over you, protect you and obtain from her Divine Son, all the graces you need for the weeks and months to come.

This year is already sizing up to be a busy one.  In terms of the Fraternity it is our fifth year - so to celebrate we will have various events - a Mass in Drogheda on the foundation day (19th January); a Mass in the church where the Fraternity was born - Corpus Christi in London, on the 8th March; a pilgrimage to Rome (see link above); and of course St Genesius's feast day on the 25th August.  If you want to join our family of prayer go to http://www.stgenesius.com/.  If you want to start a prayer group in your area, let us know.

Now, time to pick your Saint for the year: go to this website here.

News



Bishop Juan de Palafox

Just casting a quick look over the net on this New Year's Day.  Damian Thompson in his blog reports that some Anglican bishops who are coming over may be received at Mass in Westminster Cathedral at noon today - A Reluctant Sinner blog confirms with photographs: three former bishops, two wives of bishops, and the three nuns from Walsingham.  Andrew Burnham was among them, the other two being John Broadhurst and Keith Newton.  According to Caritas in Veritate blog the three former bishops will be ordained deacons on the 13th January and then priests two days later.  We accompany them with our prayers, and indeed all our brothers and sisters who will be entering full communion with the Church in the coming months to form the new Ordinariates.  We look forward to that and to the blessings the Ordinariates will bring.

UPDATE: The Anglo-Catholic blog has a lovely account of the former Anglicans' reception, as does Austen Ivereigh.    A larger group including three bishops, about fifty clergy and laity from about twenty Anglican parishes will be recieved at Easter.  Phew!  This is wonderful. 

John Allen, reflecting on the news stories of 2010, details five Vatican news stories which did not get the media attention they deserved: one of them is the continuing persecution of Christians in the modern world.  BBC news are reporting another Muslim atrocity against us this time a car bomb in Egypt which went off outside a Coptic Church as Mass was being celebrated.  Christians in Iraq are being decimated by Muslims as a religious war seems to be in full swing.   Of course the media ignore most of it - the martyrdom of Christians, and of Catholics in particular is not newsworthy, it seems.

I also see Planned Parenthood is top of the agenda for many of our Hollywood friends.  According to some of them the organisation is on the verge of penury and needs financial assistance (a billion dollar turnover is penury, God help us, the rest of us must be destitute!).   Sad to see anyone supporting that organisation which, on its own, is responsible for more human deaths, than most of the tyrannies and wars in history.  Communism and socialism holds the record with over 100 million murdered, Planned Parenthood must have beaten that record by now, or at least, must be very close to it.  Reading an article on LifeSiteNews, I realise how much prayer our actors and actresses need.  Social causes is one thing, and they all love causes, but cooperation in the greatest evil the world has know, that is another.  We need to pray.  And if you agree with me and are not a member of our Fraternity, please join us, pray with us!

The Holy Father has a busy year ahead, including World Youth Day in Madrid in August.  And two books coming out - volumes two and three of Jesus of Nazareth in March and November.  I think I'll start camping out outside Veritas in Dublin to get my copy (no, better still hop on a plane to CTS in London, Veritas takes ages to get his books).  Why not just pre-book on Amazon?  True, but that takes all the fun out of it.

Personally, my final profession as a Secular Discalced Carmelite takes place later this month - ceremony had to be cancelled last month due to snow.  Our Order also gets a new Blessed this year, Bishop Juan de Palafox (1600-1659).  He was not a professed Carmelite at all, but a great friend of the Order and very much influenced by St Teresa and St John. Born in Spain, he became a bishop in the New World and was renowned for his defence of the native peoples.  His work for them gained him many enemies.  He placed a group of Jesuits who were involved in cruel practices under interdict, and they tried to excommunicate him.  They managed to have him removed from his diocese and sent back to Spain.  His cause was opened soon after his death, and a miracle obtained to lead to his beatification, but the Jesuits hijacked the process and persuaded the pope to suspend it, which he did.  Pope John Paul II restarted it in 2003 and the Discalced Carmelite Postulator has been doing Trojan work.  The Venerable Juan will be beatified in May, unless some bolshie Jesuits get to Benedict first.   But we will be ready for them this time!

Happy New Year

To all our members and friends of the Fraternity, and to readers of this blog, I wish you all every blessing for the New Year.

Today at a special Mass at midday here in Rathkenny, we formally consecrated our parish and families to the Immaculate Heart of Mary - a beautiful, simple ceremony.  The microphone stopped working just before the Act of Consecration - technical difficulties or spiritual difficulties, not sure, but the Act was made.  No better way to begin the new year than placing it into the hands of Our Lady.  May she accompany all of you in the days, weeks and months of 2011.

Woah!

Strange things happen - very strange sometimes.  In faith we may call them providence, or coincidence, or just weird.  Well, that happened me today, or did it?  I was surfing the net and discovered, thanks to the Anchoress, a site where you can receive a saint for the year.  Good idea, I said to myself, I can plug this on the blog and encourage devotion to the saints for the coming year. 

Well I decided to try the thing myself.  Apparently the programme automatically generates a saint for you. So I clicked the button...there now, <<CLICK>>....wait a minute...say a prayer to the Holy Spirit, who can indeed work through technology....now, prompted to clink on the link to find the saint...ok, right, now....<<CLICK>>  Oh Lord!  Who pops up???  St Genesius!!  Either this is providence, Genesius pulling another of his practical jokes or they have some cookie or something which investigates your internet background.  Not sure, I'm a little bit raw at the moment.  But that was interesting.

Anyway, here is the link, off you go, have fun, knock yourselves out and maybe let us know who popped up for you?  Was it your favourite saint? A fitting Saint?   Or have you had a providential moment like me?