"Passion Week"

In the older form of the Mass of the Roman Rite last Sunday is designated as "Passion Sunday" and this coming Sunday is Palm Sunday. It is from Passion Sunday onwards that statues and crucifixes are veiled, marking a more solemn approach to Holy Week and flagging it up in a very visible way.

In the newer form of the Mass the fifth Sunday of Lent marks this transition but it is not really marked at all, as it is just designated as the next Sunday of Lent - the fifth. However, there is a continuation from the older Missal in that from Monday of this week it is specified that we use the first of the two Passion Prefaces but we slide into this change with no formal way of marking it.

Just a little quirk I noticed.

For the Honour of the Crucifix!

In Avignon, seat of the Papacy from 1309-1377, an exhibition called "I believe in miracles" has been running based around a photograph of a Crucifix immersed in urine! Posters of this blasphemous image, called "Piss Christ", are displayed publicly in the streets of the city. All this in the run up to Holy Week and Easter.

The French Ministry of Culture, the town council and the regional council are currently funding this exhibition. Among the sponsors of this blasphemy are SNFC (the French Rail Company) and the Cartier Foundation.

In the USA and Australia, this blasphemous photo, made in 1987, was banned.

However, after only 1 week an online petition against this blasphemy had 31,076 signatories. There was also vociferous opposition from such luminaries as HRH Prince Charles-Philippe d'Orleans, the Deputy Mayor of Paray-le-Monial Jean-Marc Nesme, Archbishop Jean-Pierre Cattenoz Archbishop of Avignon, Father Regis De Cacqueray, Superior District of France of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, etc.. ..

Alain Escada, General Secretary of Civitas, a group of young Catholics "animated by the fervent desire to initiate concrete actions contributing to the restoration of the social and political reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ in our homeland", has been at the forefront of the fight against this nastiness. As he puts it:

Is it necessary to repeat? If this show contained a "work" offensive to Muslims or Jews, this exhibition would be permanently closed and a public apology would follow. No, Catholics will no longer tolerate being treated as second class citizens.

For the honour of Christ, let us make our voices heard.



Alain Escada,

Secretary General of the Civitas Institute

If you click on the link below to sign the petition you will see that it is sponsored by a whole host of Catholic organisations (including the site of Prince Charles Philippe d'Orleans - which is where I discovered the information about this abomination). It's good to see that there are so many Catholic organisations still willing to stand up for the Faith in France. I wonder if the same would apply in this country?

Please click on this link & sign this petition:

"The armed men fight and God will give victory" Saint Joan of Arc.

Popular Piety

Blessed Pope John XXIII - in another example of his clear view that traditional practices should be done away with!

Speaking to participants in the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America the Holy Father has stressed that popular piety and devotions still hold a strong position in the Church - helping us to pray and to evengelise. Of Devotions he says:

All of them, well channeled and duly supported, propitiate a fruitful encounter with God, an intense veneration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a profound devotion to the Virgin Mary, a cultivation of affection for the Successor of Peter and an awareness of belonging to the Church.

Read further here and view more here.

Looking ahead to the next few months after Easter is a fruitful time to prepare and take part in some of these devotions, following the pattern that the Holy Father outlines above. These often have the added advantage of a public witness to the Faith.

May - the month of Our Lady - with a May Procession and Crowning.

Corpus Christi - with a Blessed Sacrament Procession, preferably though the streets but at least outdoors.

29th June - the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul by praying for the Holy Father and renewing our filial love and devotion towards the successor of St Peter, perhaps by the Dedication of England to St Peter.

Simple devotions still have the ability to move the heart and to enable everyone, of any age and background to take part. For those who might be tempted to think themselves too sophisticated for such things, a reminder of simple faith expressed by loving acts and an opportunity to behave as God's children - which is what every one of us is in His eyes, mere babes when it comes to the road to holiness.

My Heart is moved to compassion by the sufferings of my priests

This painting depicts Our Lord as he appeared in the Sacred Host exposed in the monstrance at the Institute of Loreto in Bordeaux, France on Septuagesima Sunday, 3 February 1822. Read about this manifestation of the Eucharistic Face of Jesus here.

Fr Z has also picked up this post from Fr Mark Kirby's Blog Vultus Christi but I thought it well worth repeating for myself, for priests, for those contemplating a vocation and also for laity to help understand the priestly life.

My Heart is moved to compassion by the sufferings of my priests,
by those that they inflict upon themselves
and by those that they inflict on each other.

The sins of my priests cause me an immense sorrow.
I grieve over my priests
with a tender and sorrowful love.

I want them to understand
that every trial, every suffering, every humiliation is,
for them, an occasion to turn to me with confidence
and to discover the depth and the height and the breadth
of my merciful love,
of my Divine Friendship for them.

This is the answer and the remedy
for every crisis in the life of a priest:
a return to my Divine Friendship,
a humble and confident return to my most loving Heart,
a return to the foot of my altar
and to the comforting radiance of my Eucharistic Face.

The trials and sorrows that I permit to befall my priests
will serve my designs for their holiness
and for their growth in love.
Everything a priest suffers should send him to my Heart.
And where will he find my Heart,
opened by the lance and still beating with love,
if not in the Sacrament of the Altar,
the abiding sign of my friendship of predilection
for each and every priest?

I am calling my priests back to my altars;
I am calling them into the healing radiance of my Eucharistic Face.
I am calling my priests
into the intimate friendship of my Eucharistic Heart.

Why do so few respond to my call?
It is, in effect, more than a call:
I plead with them to become entirely Eucharistic priests
living from my altar and for my altar,
and abiding as often as they can
in the radiance of my Eucharistic Face.

A priest who spurns my Divine Friendship
is an empty vessel,
a cause of sorrow to my Heart,
a blight upon the Church,
a disappointment to my faithful.

Do what you can, do what you must,
to draw your brother priests . . .
into the radiance of my Eucharistic Face.
There they will taste and will come to know the sweetness of my love
and the infinite treasures of my mercy for them.

From In Sinu Iesu, The Journal of A Priest

Missionaries of Divine Revelation

Some of the Sisters seen at Cardinal Piacenza's installation wear a distinctive green habit. They are the Missionaries of Divine Revelation and the green of the habit is in honour of our Blessed Lady and her appearance at Tre Fontane on April 12th 1947 when she revealed herself to Bruno Cornacchiola as the Virgin of Revelation. The Sisters grew out of a lay community that formed itself around devotion to our Lady's apparition there. Cardinal Piacenza, at the time still a lowly monsignor, has been a friend to the Sisters and has encouraged the devotion. Apparently he especially requested Tre Fontane as his titular church, even though it is not one of the traditional Roman churches allocated to cardinals.

As anyone who has been out to Tre Fontanne knows, there are three churches within the domain. The church of St Paul of the Three Fountains commemorating the waters that sprang up when St Paul was beheaded in his martyrdom for the Faith. A second church, Santa Maria Scala Coeli, a sixteenth-century gem church commemorating 1,000 roman soldiers martyred during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian with its dedication referring to a vision recorded above the high altar, of souls being assisted to Heaven by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The third church, seen in the photographs, which was never given a renaissance makeover and so looks much older and simpler both inside and out, which was used for the Mass of the Cardinal's installation as it is the largest of the three. This is Santi Vincenzo ed Anastasio, originally dating to the seventh century, rebuilt in the thirteenth and since 1868 home to Trappist monks who still grow eucalyptus trees and producing herbal remedies, liqueurs and - reputedly- the best chocolates in Rome.

All these are relevant to the Sisters, whose chief chosen work is catechesis. The Virgin of Revelation made clear in her apparition that the Scriptures are explained most properly through the authoritative teaching of the Church. The image of St Paul holding the Scriptures and the image of Our Lady doing the same - highlights the fact that Christ entrusted the message of salvation to the Church for the sake of all mankind. The Sisters were founded:

To think as the Church has always thought,
love as the Church has always loved
and to want what the Church has always wanted.

The apparition also had a strong focus on priests who would abandon the Faith and stray. A prescient concern considering the Church of today. The painting in Santa Maria Scala Coeli is a reminder that the Church needs priests to offer Mass and thereby assist souls to Heaven.


Cardinal Piacenza remains a great friend of the Sisters and another frequent visitor to the convent is pictured below. Mgr Marini with Madre and then before the altar on a day of recollection.


There is one British Sister - formerly from Wigan - now with the Missionaries. May the Lord prosper her vocation and the work of the good Sisters. There is more about them here.

Cardinal Piacenza in a rose Pontifical Dalmatic

There has been a huge interest in the lovely rose vestments worn by Cardinal Piacenza on Saturday, especially the Pontifical Dalmatic. Here is another photo taken by 'our man in rome'.

Cardinal Piacenza takes possession of his Titular Church of San Paolo alle Tre Fontane.

Today Mauro Cardinal Piacenza took possession of his titular church in Rome - San Paolo alle Tre Fontane. This is the first time this church, marking the place of St Paul's execution, has been a cardinal's titular church. Cardinal Piacenza, Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, made the request because he has a long association with and strong devotion to Our Lady of Revelation - a shrine and pilgrimage site across the road from the Tre Fontane Church. The story of the apparition is an interesting one and the power of prayer there is attested to by the thousands of thank offerings lining the walls from the time of its origin in 1947 until today.

Interestingly, the statue in Tre Fontane church depicts St Paul with his letters in his hand - the New Testament. In the apparition of Revelation Our Lady reveals herself as holding the Scriptures. More on this to come but here are some photos from this afternoon.