What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Just when I thought Mr. Oriole was being elusive.





Mr. Oriole has a sweet beak.  He likes what Hummingbirds get and goes after slices of oranges.



The Mourning Doves are getting ready to make more Mourning Doves.

Mr. Pewee has a nice juicy bug!



And along comes Meleagris gallopavo!

 

I received this question:

For the funeral of a cleric, I know that the body is dressed in the liturgical vesture proper to their order and rank.  Does this include a particular color for the vestments or is it what ever color is desired? I can’t seem to find anything on this on the web except for the Pope who gets red vestments.)

My understanding is that clerics ought to be vested in the sacral garments that distinguishes their grade.

So, a priest ought to be dress in a chasuble.  I believe it ought to be violet, but I am sure that this is prescribed anywhere.

I have a Roman chasuble, a pianeta a priest in Italy gave me.  It had been left in the sun for a long time, folded, so the back is faded in part and can’t be used for Mass.  Perfect for a coffin!

I know that some priests are in white, but I don’t think that is the traditional color.

 

Also, remember that his body must be turned the other way: head toward the altar.
 

During the Holy Father’s Corpus Christi Mass, the Holy Father gave Communion only to people kneeling at a kneeler set up before him.

This is a very interesting development.

The Holy Father has been trying to provoke conversation and a rethinking of many practices, not very good innovations, that have become more or less standard.

You can see the kneeler set out.

And the people knelt and received on the tongue.

I am sure they were instructed to.
 

I watched and rewatched the coverage and did not spot anyone receiving in another way from the Holy Father.

In so many places it is simply accepted that Mass must be celebrated "facing the people", versus populum, instead of "facing God", ad orientem.

So the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass in the Sistine Chapel, when he was also going to do something very much in his role as Bishop of Rome, when he baptized.

He got the conversation going.

Now, in another moment when he is very much Bishop of his diocese, for this great City celebration of the Eucharist, he adminsters Holy Communion on the tongue at a kneeler.

Surely this will start another conversation.

Remember that just the other day the newspaper of the Diocese of Toronto attacked Benedict’s reforms as "backward steps" and the mere suggestion that Communion in the hand wasn’t wonderful.

Remember that His Holiness’s Secretary in the Cong. for Divine Worship, Archbp. Malcolm Ranjith, wrote a preface to a book, Dominus Est: riflessioni di un vescovo dell’Asia Centrale sulla Santa Comunione, printed by the Vatican press which argues for a return to Communion kneeling and on the tongue.  The book is by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan and it will eventually be in English, I am sure. In the Vatican’s newspaper, Bp. Schneider asked "Wouldn’t it correspond better to the deepest reality and truth about the consecrated bread if even today the faithful would kneel on the ground to receive it, opening their mouths like the prophet receiving the word of God and allowing themselves to be nourished like a child?". 

It may be that at the next Mass Pope Benedict will do the same.  Maybe he won’t.

But people are now going to be talking.

Piece by piece, he is challenging assumptions.

Brick by brick he is rebuilding what was devastated.

His Marshall Plan for the Church is very much underway.

UPDATE: 22 May 15:20 GMT

Here is a video, with the German language feed, probably from Vatican Radio.

The music is the soupy goopy stuff of Msgr. Marco Frisina, who is entirely dominating Italian "pastoral" liturgical music these days from his post at the Lateran.

The Holy Father is celebrating the Mass of Corpus Christi in Rome.

Remember… today is Corpus Christi, not Sunday, in the traditional Roman calendar.

His sermon, in Italian.

There will be a procession with the Blessed Sacrament at the end of Mass to St. Mary Major.

He is moving along at a good pace.  I think he is aware of the length of this celebration.

It is in Italian.

Something fantastic has occurred!

For Holy Communion from the Holy Father, a kneeler has been set in place before His Holiness and people are kneeling and receiving on the tongue.

Excellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please pray for Fr. McAfee, a frequent commenter here.  A reader wrote to let us know that he had a stroke.

"So, how are things at the feeder these days?"

Glad you asked.

Here are a few of the latest pix.



We know him very well now.  This is Mr. Indigo Bunting.  We saw the Missus the other day, but she is rarely spotted.  Actually, there are quite a few males.  I believe the females are nesting. 

Probably our Purple Finch, Mister.



The Hummingbirds are around, now that I have put out feeders for them.

There is one immediately outside my window next to the desk where I am working.

On my way to get mail yesterday I caught Mr. Red-Breasted Grosbeak in flight, in both senses of the word.



Mr. Pewee likes to supervise, with much tail bobbing.  He never seems to eat, oddly.



Again, Mr. Ruby Throated Hummingbird or Archilochus colubris.

He is quite festively iridescent.  I’ll try to catch his bright red throat band in the sunlight.

A feeder thug is the Blue Jay or Cyanocitta cristata.  Very aggressive.



I have seen a couple Orioles today, but they are elusive and seem to no when the camera is out of reach.