Florence...

"And the voices in the waves are always whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away!"

--Charles Dickens in Dombey and Son

Fleeting Vision

Since virtue holds the middle ground,
why are you found so far away?
Why do you stay in darkness,
fleeing from the day into the night,
hiding in the shadows where
no light can reach you?
Who can teach you to forsake
the emptiness around you?
You have bound yourself with chains
forged by your fears.
And who can set you free?
I see it all, a fleeting vision in my dreams.
I wonder: can you see it, too?

Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

"Whoever does not wish to have Mary Immaculate as his Mother will not have Christ as his Brother either; the Father will not send His Son to him; the Son will not descend into his soul; the Holy Ghost will not make him a member of the Mystical Body of Christ; for all these mysteries of grace take place in Mary full of grace and in her alone.

No other creature is or ever will be immaculate like her, or full of grace, or capable of being so intimately united to the Lord as was the Immaculate Virgin. And since the first-born Son, the God-Man, was conceived only through the specific consent of the Most Blessed Virgin, the same holds true of all humans, who must imitate in all things their primary model, Christ."

--Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Where are the heroes?

"The real danger to society is not merely a lack of virtue but a lack of heroism."

--Reverend George William Rutler

Glimpses of another shore...

"When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings."

--Charles Dickens in David Copperfield

Why I attend the Mass of all time ( another in a series of reasons) .

From a friend's excellent blog:

Bishop Edward Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has returned to the practice of celebrating Mass ad orientem in his cathedral.

Bishop Slattery explained in his diocesan newspaper about Mass celebrated with the priest facing the people:

Unfortunately this change had a number of unforeseen and largely negative effects. First of all, it was a serious rupture with the Church’s ancient tradition. Secondly, it can give the appearance that the priest and the people were engaged in a conversation about God, rather than the worship of God. Thirdly, it places an inordinate importance on the personality of the celebrant by placing him on a kind of liturgical stage.

When we study the most ancient liturgical practices of the Church, we find that the priest and the people faced in the same direction. With the traditional Mass the priest doesn't turn his back on the people any more than the people in the front pew turn their back on the people in the pews behind them. Rather, the entire congregation -- with the priest at its head -- is oriented in the same direction to adore God as a unified body.

The modern business of the turning the priest around to face the people has taken the focus off God and put it on the people. There's six days in every week to do that if you're so inclined; leave Sunday for focusing on our Heavenly Father.

Thanks to Sean Romer for posting this.

And here are a few words of my own: God must come first. The Mass is, firstly, for Him, not for us. It is the one way in which we can give Him the only offering truly worthy of God--that is, Himself. We are privileged to be witnesses at the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Our Lord. It's not about us; it's about Him.

A true knight...

"Then must you strive to be worthy of her love. Be brave and pure, fearless to the strong and humble to the weak; and so, whether this love prosper or no, you will have fitted yourself to be honored by a maiden's love, which is, in sooth, the highest guerdon which a true knight can hope for."

--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The White Company


Happy Birthday, Emilie!