And of the Weeks

Sunday: The Resurrection; The Trinity; The Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Monday: The Holy Spirit.
Tuesday: The Holy Angels; also, certain Saints such as Anne, Anthony of Padua, &c.
Wednesday: St Joseph.
Thursday: The Last Supper, wherein were instituted the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Priesthood.
Friday: The Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Saturday: Our Lady.

Dedication of the Months

This list, taken from Fr Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary (every bookshelf should have a copy), should be memorized:

January: The Holy Name of Jesus.
February: The Passion.
March: St Joseph.
April: The Resurrection.
May: Mary.
June: The Sacred Heart.
July: The Precious Blood.
August: The Assumption.
September: The Holy Cross.
October: The Rosary.
November: The Poor Souls.
December: The Coming of Christ.

“Le latin reste la langue de l’Église. La langue latine, « par droit et par mérite acquis, doit être appelée et est la langue propre de l’Église », disait déjà saint Pie X (Vehementer sane, Lettre de la Sacrée Congrégation des Études, 1er juillet 1908). D’ailleurs tous les souverains pontifes de notre temps, émus d’une certaine décadence des études latines, n’ont cessé de le répéter : « Qu’il n’y ait aucun prêtre qui ne sache la lire et la parler avec facilité et aisance » (Pie XII, disc. Magis quam, A.A.S. 23 sept. 1951). La Constitution apostolique « Veterum sapientia » de Jean XXIII (A.A.S. 22 février 1962) est spécialement destinée à rappeler cette vérité. Enfin la Constitution conciliaire de Vatican II sur la Liturgie précise que « l’usage de la langue latine, sauf droit particulier, sera conservé dans les rites latins » (art. 36, § 1).
Ce serait donc une inconvenance ridicule et même un contresens de vouloir entreprendre ce qui semblerait une sorte de plaidoyer en faveur d’une langue supposée sur le point d’être condamnée à mort. S’il convient d’étendre l’usage du français et des autres langues modernes dans la liturgie, pour faire participer plus intimement le peuple fidèle au culte divin, si l’Église ouvre largement ses bras au monde moderne de l’Orient à l’Occident, elle plonge aussi ses racines et va chercher sa vie, à travers la tradition, jusqu’à sa source qui est la Parole de Dieu. Pour lire l’Écriture, un jeune clerc peut-il se contenter d’une traduction sans aborder les textes originaux de ce que l’on appelle « les langues sacrées » ? S’il n’a pas eu le temps matériel de lire de nombreuses pages de la littérature patristique, doit-il se contenter, pour les textes liturgiques avec lesquels il est journellement en contact, d’une connaissance approximative et purement machinale ?
Ce que nous disons du clergé peut s’appliquer aussi aux religieuses de plus en plus nombreuses à s’initier à la prière latine, ainsi qu’aux laïcs cultivés qui s’intéressent, à ce point de vue, à la vie de l’Église. Depuis un demi-siècle, le « latin chrétien » a été étudié plus sérieusement par les philologues, et le préjugé a disparu qui le regardait comme une simple manifestation de la littérature latine en décadence. L’ignorance allait jusqu’à le confondre avec le bas-latin (Voir « Le style chrétien », Manuel du latin chrétien, Ire Partie). En réalité, il faut bien constater que le christianisme a renouvelé le latin, qu’il a donné une nouvelle vie à la langue latine en spiritualisant son vocabulaire. Or l’essentiel de cette richesse est contenu dans les différentes sortes de textes liturgiques. Nous nous adressons donc à ceux qui, sans la connaître complètement, ont senti la noblesse de cette langue chrétienne, et ont à cœur d’en approfondir l’étude avec le sérieux, le respect et la vénération qui lui sont dus. Car il s’agit, oserait-on dire, d’une sorte de « troisième Testament ». Parmi les différents mystiques du mot testamentum, envisageons celui-ci: « témoignage, attestation ». Dans l’Écriture sainte, en effet, nous trouvons ce que Dieu a attesté à son propre sujet (Deo testante de se, Hilar. Trin. 1, 5), ou ce que l’écrivain inspiré a attesté du sujuet de Dieu. Or pourrait-on dire qu’après le Nouveau Testament, il n’y a plus d’ « attestation », alors que Jésus a dit à ses disciples : « Je serai avec vous jusqu’à la fin des temps », et aussi : « Je vous enverrai le Saint-Esprit » ? C’est pourquoi, dans le latin liturgique, même en dehors des textes bibliques, on doit reconnaître le « témoignage » de la foi de l’Église, le reflet de sa croyance, tel qu’elle nous l’a « légué » au cours des siècles, le « testament » dont elle nous a confié le dépôt, dans sa prière et dans sa vie.”

Albert Blaise, Préface from "Le vocabulaire latin des principaux thèmes liturgiques", Ouvrage revu par Dom Antoine Dumas O.S.B., Brepols, n. d.

Thomas the Tank Engine is in my head now. Not literally, obviously.

I am going to get up at 7 tomorrow. Wherefore, the alarm clock is OVER THERE.

I have just given sanabituranima a lesson in Roman numerals and fractions. I shall go to bed soon.

De Jejunio

DE JEJUNIO
On Fasting

Fasting properly means abstaining from all food for a certain period of time. It is an important part of the spiritual life; not the most important; but necessary. Our Lord said that there were certain demons that could only be cast out “by prayer and fasting ”—which may explain why you pray all the time but, because you never fast, cannot overcome some sin. I shall be concerned in this essay not only with fasting but also with abstinence. The Church has always required some quantity of both of these related disciplines from the earliest times: the Second Precept of the Church (in the traditional enumeration) is “To fast and abstain [sc. from meat] on the days appointed.”
Fasting is different from dieting. Dieting is directed towards the health of the body; fasting, towards that of the soul. Since man is neither body alone nor soul alone but a composite of both, one cannot harm one without harming the other, and one cannot improve one without improving the other; and so dieting may indirectly assist the soul while directly assisting the body, and fasting may indirectly assist the body while directly assisting the soul. In fact I would say that, if the one or the other is done rightly, this will always be the case.
The end of fasting is the acquisition or perfection of the virtue of temperance (and also the virtues subordinate to temperance such as chastity). Most of us, I would venture to assert, are by temperament intemperate. We eat too much, drink too much, and sleep too much, and are especially immoderate with regard to the procreative faculty. This is ultimately due to original sin; but we are under no necessity to be intemperate and unchaste—unless a lack of self-control is a necessity. There is nothing wrong, of course, with the things in whose regard we lack self-control; the wrong lies in our own inordinateness in seeking too much of them. It is also inordinate to seek too little—so it would be a sin to eat too little just as it would be a sin to eat too much: virtues can be sinned against by defect just as much as by excess. The sin consists precisely in the violation of right order. But the vast majority of us are more prone to excess in these matters than to defect in them.
The Catholic Church has wisely imposed laws upon her members in order to the sanctification and salvation of those members—which is the ultimate end of fasting, and of all the spiritual life. The regulations of abstinence from meat on Friday, and the Lenten fast, are probably the best known. These regulations have in recent times been (unfortunately) relaxed so that there are, in many places at least, eight days of obligatory abstinence and two obligatory days of fasting. This is pathetic. If we consider the Friday abstinence from meat, it covered a seventh of the year; when Saturdays were included, that made two sevenths of the year. If Lent is added to that, a tenth of the year, we reach the excruciating fraction of twenty-two thirty-fifths of the year being obligatory days of abstinence. When people fasted for the whole of Lent, that was an obligatory fast of forty days; the Ember Days add twelve to that, so that we have fifty-two days—totalling a seventh of the year. Compare this to today, where we have eight three-hundred-and-sixty-fifths of the year devoted to abstinence, and two three-hundred-and-sixty-fifths of the year to fasting. What must our forefathers in heaven think of us?!
I was inspired to write this essay by the fact that today is one of the Ember Days—three days of fasting occurred at the beginning of each season, a Wednesday, a Friday, and a Saturday; today is the first of the summer Ember Days. It is well known that the Church in Her wisdom grafted her feasts on to pagan feasts; in this case the Church grafted her fasts on to pagan fasts. If I remember correctly, the Ember Days were times of especial prayer for the priesthood and for the virtue of chastity. They were of obligation until fairly recently.
The Church has always held that the substance of her fasts consists in the taking of only one full meal during the course of a day. Traditionally this was supposed to be taken after noon; but in many places custom led to its being taken in the evening. I have mentioned the Lenten fast; there was at one point a “Black Fast.” Read this, and tell me we are not wimps today:

In the first place more than one meal was strictly prohibited. At this meal flesh meat, eggs, butter, cheese and milk were interdicted. … Besides these restrictions abstinence from wine, especially during Lent, was enjoined…. Furthermore, during Holy Week the fare consisted of bread, salt, herbs, and water…. Finally, this meal was not allowed until sunset.

Such rigour could not be introduced today. I fear it would simply not be obeyed; and in any case it would be highly imprudent to introduce such severity all of a sudden.

I shall not go into minute details over the history of the legislation or the moral theology of fasting, for that can be found in the entry “Abstinence” in the Catholic Encyclopedia; but I shall make some remarks upon its spiritual benefits.

I. Temperance.

As I have said, we are not naturally temperate. The self-discipline involved tends to affect other areas—I have found that I am less inclined to check Facebook continually, and the sexual appetites are also brought under the subjugation of reason. There is a certain healthy tiredness which induces concentration. Of course if, or when, the practice of fasting is ruinous to one’s health it should not be done.

II. Obedience.

Obedience is perhaps the only way to attain humility. Chastity has been called impossible; but humility is more impossible. Both these virtues are unattainable without God’s grace. All virtues are unattainable without God’s grace; but if many of us have frequent falls into certain sins, it is only account of our pride and self-will. The way to conquer self-will is by the submission of one’s own will to that of another, particularly to that of God: this is the very definition of holiness—of wholeness—and of happiness.

III. Joy.

The self-control that is learned through fasting provides an inner peace and joy in the ability to subjugate one’s appetites to the dominion of reason.

IV. Health.

I was referring to bodily health when I typed that, but it is true also of spiritual health. There is no doubt that giving oneself completely to one’s appetites is unhealthy; there is no doubt that any particular eating disorder is unhealthy (and indeed those who have such disorders must not fast without the consent of a physician or some prudent person); but a moderate amount of fasting is good for the body as well as the soul. I refer the reader to the relevant articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

V. Strength of Will.

Related to Joy above, the self-control entailed strengthens the will towards good and consequently away from evil.



It is of course true that there will be unpleasant effects, such as a certain drowsiness and possible temptations to irritability and pride. The fatigue may be offset by drinking a sufficient quantity of water; as for the temptations, God allows them for your sanctification. It is your duty to resist them. Fasting is not meant to be a sensual pleasure, though it should be a joy if done in the service of God. If fasting has a bad effect on your health, then of course it should not be done. The Church’s legislation has, of course, never been intended to bind such.

Seven Liberal Arts

TRIVIUM: Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric
QUADRIVIUM: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy

Please pray for me.

http://www.wordonfire.org/WoF-Blog/WoF-Blog/May-2010/Fr-Barron-Dr-Scott-Hahn-Modern-Biblical-Inter.aspx

I did not manage to see a doctor today.

Your prayers please; I am in bad health - physically, mentally, and spiritually. I am also engrossed in a Latin dictionary, which I am finding rather more interesting than most people find Latin dictionaries to be.

Hip, hip, hooray for Lewis and Short!

Difference of religion is, as the wise Hilaire Belloc says (I forget where), a much greater barrier than difference of language.

The fundamental line of cleavage is between that which is Catholic and that which is not. It is not between Christian and non-Christian, or between Catholic and Protestant, or between Christian and Jew, or between Western and Eastern, or between North and South, or between up and down.

The Catholic Church is the divinely appointed expositor of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Perhaps "the whole truth" is an exaggeration - but the whole of Divine Revelation, in any case.

Anyhow, the officially secular age in which we live does not understand us. It does not understand very much, but it certainly does not understand us Catholics. But we understand it.

It has its tragic and its comic aspects.

Tomorrow - or today, probably, by the time you read this - begins the Novena to the Holy Spirit. I shall post each part of the Novena to Facebook daily.

I think I shall begin a Novena to St Joseph Cupertino tomorrow (14/5) as well.

Facebook seems to dislike people with different interests from the ones they already have on their list. I am interested in philosophy, theology, literature, history, languages, and various other things; but I am too tired to enumerate them all now.

Some people have low self-esteem.

Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made as white as snow.

Gentle Reader,

I am, as usual, tired. I have this infernal examination tomorrow, and possibly a deadline. I have asked for *another* extension to that one, however.

I feel like David Dimbleby

I'm still tired.

Why I am I still tired?

It vexes me.

I have a place here next year! Huzzah!

0054 GMT+1

Thornbury & Yate: LD
Darlington: Lab
Durham North: Lab
Washington & Sunderland West: Lab
Houghton & Sunderland South: Lab
Sunderland Central: Lab
Belfast East: LD
Antrim North: Democratic Unionist Party
Tyrone West: SF

12:54 GMT+1

A Rewrite of the same

It was the Classical Symphony. That symphony has about it all those graces that render music the thing salvageable from that eighteenth century of time: that time of augmented wealth and diminished happiness, of coarseness in art and in life, an age that began but a few short years after Islam was finally - it had threatened us for full a thousand years - thrust out of the gates of Western Europe on that memorable date, the 11th of September, sixteen hundred and eighty-three, one of the most important in all history, to rise once more in our own day with vengeance; and an age which concluded with a hecatomb to implacable Thanatos; an age when our skies began to choke us with smoke and with fog; when men, especially in England, lost all grasp of spiritual realities, and, lost as in a desert, wandered listlessly, only to find themselves enwrapped in the one or the other of the inevitable concomitants of faithless ages (so familiar!), supersition and rationalism (that most irrational of "isms"); that age of such false philosophies as those of Kant and Hume (what would Aristotle have made of Hume!); the age of the furious Gibbon, blind copier of the scoffing Voltaire; an age of ill-health in body and in soul; an age, finally, of all manner of vice, excess, and perversion: in short, an age so like our own that it is no wonder we continue to call it by that most ironic Kantian name: Enlightenment.

Today is, here, the Memorial of the Forty English Martyrs. I went to Mass this morning; unsurprisingly, the priest gave a tiresomely ecumenical homily about the brotherhood of Protestants and Catholics, thereby entirely missing the point of the Memorial.

I have worked on an essay today; I quote what I think is a rather fine passage from my as yet unfinished essay:

It was the Classical Symphony. That symphony has about it all those graces that render music the thing salvageable from that eighteenth century of time: that time of augmented wealth and diminished happiness, of coarseness in art and in life, an age that began but seventeen years after Islam was after nearly a thousand years finally thrust out of the gates of Europe on that memorable date, September 11, 1683, one of the most important in all history, to rise once more in our own day, and an age which concluded in the sacrilegious horrors of the French Revolution, and the sacrifices thereof to Death’s dark demon; an age when a succession of German puppet kings were placed on the throne of England after the legitimate Stuart kings had been ousted and replaced, tragically, with a comical little Dutch adulterous perverted vicious heretical murderous massacring usurper, after this country had been invaded by Dutch mercenaries; an age when the ancient traditions of Christendom all but broke down, and when our skies began to choke us with smoke and fog, when men lost all mental grasp of spiritual realities, especially in England, and, lost, wandered listlessly to find themselves enwrapped in superstition, or in rationalism (that most irrational of “isms”); that age of such false philosophies as that of the supremely tedious and very silly Kant, and the abominable Hume (what would Aristotle have made of Hume! Mincemeat, I suppose); the age of the hate-inflamed Gibbon, who blindly copied the coward, Voltaire, who thrice asked to see a priest, each on an occasion when he thought himself in peril of death, his fear lasting as long as the danger, so that he finally died without Confession, as he, if anybody ever did, deserved; an age of ill-health in body and in soul; of every kind of vice, excess, and perversion: and in that respect an age so like our own that it is no wonder that we continue to call it by that most ironic Kantian name: Enlightenment. This has not a little to do with the fact that our histories in the English language have almost universally been written by those hostile to Catholicism and therefore to truth, with the inevitable result that their writings are, as they well know, a pack of lies, from the first page until the final period of the last. If anybody doubts this, or thinks that I write from religious bias (one cannot be biased towards the truth), let him read Macaulay, Gibbon, A. G. Dickens, Burnet, Robertson, Trevelyan, G. R. Elton, H. E. Marshall, Milner, Murray, Froude, and Priestley, and compare them with reality as demonstrated by the primary sources, one’s own senses, and one’s own reason, even should he not accept the authority of the Catholic Church.

I have been reading a lot of Hilaire Belloc lately - notably How the Reformation Happened, an excellent book, perhaps the best monograph on the subject. I cannot recommend the historical (or, for that matter, the poetical) works of Belloc highly enough - he is the source of most of my historical knowledge; and he is almost invariably right in his conclusions; perhaps the "almost" is not necessary. It was Belloc's ambition to rewrite the anti-Catholic and therefore false official history of this country; and this, in my judgement, he achieved, and successfully. I have heard him called inferior to Christopher Dawson; I have not read Dawson, so I cannot make any comment other than that if Dawson is a better historian than Belloc, Dawson must be a very good historian indeed.

I have just had a wonderful evening with sanabituranima.