Our friends over at NLM have eagle eyes for details in the liturgical eye-candy photos they so often post.
They noticed, for example, that Pope Benedict’s stemma, or coat-of-arms, is to be seen on the faldstool used on 31 December during 1st Vespers of Mary, Mother on God, followed by Benediction.
You can see Papa‘s coat-of-arms on the left, and Bl. Pope John XXIII’s stemma on the cope.
NLM also made the observation that the faldstool is back.
We are all pleased.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
on Prayer request for an amazing priest blogger: “Will certainly add the erudite and edifying Fr. John Hunwicke to my prayer list.”
on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “To add to what Father said: As some of you may know, I reside in the diocese of Rockville Centre.…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 17th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 25th) 2023: “Everyone: Thanks for sharing the GOOD stuff. We have enough bad. Some people don’t get any good at all.”
on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “I know it is no longer Sunday, but I just came from a funeral Mass for a grandmother where the…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 17th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 25th) 2023: “We couldn’t make our normal TLM at 7am, so we went to the new (as of Sept 10) TLM at…”
on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “Yep. A parish is 5 minutes from us – “charismatic” with a rock and roll band. Ugh. So we go…”
on LONG LOST AUDIO of funny Latin speech about how Latin is spoken with different accents: ““…but there are nooo cats in America, and the streets are paved with cheese….” Hmmm. More seriously, best make sure…” on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “As I watch, I think the youngsters are yet too young to be embarrassed. I don’t think they know what…”
on Daily Rome Shot 803: “Not sure how you’d rack up a $400 bill on AT&T that way. The AT&T plan is for $10/day and…”
on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 17th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 25th) 2023: “Share the good. Our parish priest is kind and devout. He clearly loves the mass and does everything with reverence.…”
on Daily Rome Shot 803: “Rome Shot: The top of the arch in the sanctuary at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.”
on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “The Director of Liturgy at St. Anne’s is Rory Cooney. This explains much.” on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “Don’t judge all priests of a diocese from a few stranger ones. Give the new guy a chance to show…”
on Adventures in Sunday Worship: St. Anne’s UPDATE and some liturgical dance in New York: “Our new bishop is from Rockvlille Centre. Now I’m very concerned I may have to find a new parish in…” on LONG LOST AUDIO of funny Latin speech about how Latin is spoken with different accents: “As far as the mouse scenario is concerned, you have to have a foundational principle. Things which are consecrated, and…”
Loading ...
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
Loading ...If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
Loading ...
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Use my code for a discount
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
“Faldstool,” that’s my word of the day! How very neat! Never know what one may pick on on your blog, Fr!
Can the fanon be far behind? After that, the Papal Court!
How do people know all this obscure Papal vestment knowledge. Is there some secret initiation class I missed out on when I came into the Church? :P
I think eagle eyes is an understatement, Father. I understand seeing the one on the cope, but I’d never have been able to spot Benedict’s coat of arms on the faldstool. Seeing all these pictures makes me wish I hadn’t missed it on EWTN! Here’s hoping for a late night repeat.
Jason,
Interest in papal vesture is an acquired taste. But to use your “secret initiation class” example, this is more like upper-division level classes.
Is it proper for a pope to wear another pope’s coat of arms?
The faldstool was never gone. I have seen several photos of it used during the pontificate of John Paul II. It was, however, recently restored for its current use. BUT, it was also vandalized. When this faldstool was made for Leo XIII the coat of arms wasn’t painted onto that little oval cartouche with the elaborate frame. Rather, the cartouche contained the shield of the coat of arms and the whole cartouche was surmounted by gilded tiara and keys. These have been recently removed! I don’t understand this. One the red chair the Pope uses when presiding at mass they recently changed the finials to contain his coat of arms and left the tiara and keys alone. Why, then, was it necessary to destroy part of this faldstool. The liturgical restorations are nice but the vandalism continues.
variously: Is it proper for a pope to wear another pope’s coat of arms?
Apparently it is! o{]:¬)
It’s a version of recycling… very green… saving the planet, and all that.
Compare the faldstool now with how it originally looked:
http://image511.imageshack.us/image511/6312/sc000f018etd3.jpg
Happy to see it back and hope it never gets put in the closet again….I hope future Pontificates maintain and pass on all the elements of the past that are so sorely missed..Something like passing down Grandma’s China…Simply wonderful news..
Fr. Guy, there’s a typo in your URL (the server does not exist according to their nameservers):
% dnsq a image511.imageshack.us ns7.imageshack.us
1 image511.imageshack.us:
84 bytes, 1+0+1+0 records, response, authoritative, nxdomain
query: 1 image511.imageshack.us
authority: imageshack.us 1800 SOA ns.imageshack.us root.imageshack.us 1231016582 120 7200 3600000 86400
Am I the only one to notice the Papal Tiara on BXVI’s coat of arms?! I zoomed, and it seems quite clear that it is the tiara.
Hugo: I am pretty sure that is the miter version, not the tiara.
After a careful comparison, I think I agree with you, Father. :)
Is this better?
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/6312/sc000f018etd3.jpg
Now, that’s a FINE example of recycling!
Well, I think I understand why thye took off the little tiara in the faldstol. I do not agree, but think:
The Holy Father coat of arms does not have the tiara on it. And Leo XIII did have. So, earlier in the little blue thing only the coat of arms would go, and the tiara would complete it. Now thye had two options, or take out the tiara and construct a miter there, or do what they have done. But in my opinion, that would be a great oportunity to start the use of the tiara on the coat of arms…anyway a great and wonderful improvement!
It looks to me as though they took off the whole piece of wood that backs the medallion — old arms medallion, tiara, folderol and all. (Probably put it into the museum to keep nice.) It would have been a whole lot easier and neater to manufacture either a modified replica of the whole faldstool or of just that one little part, than to saw off the tiara and replace one medallion with another.
It would have been better simply to paint what is on the shield of Benedict’s coat of arms on the cartouche and leave it at that. Period.
This is a wonderful development and uplifting after all the depressing stuff I’ve been reading about lately.
Perhaps we should organize a petition asking the Holy Father to resume the use of the Tiara, accompanied by Rosary and Mass Novenas for that purpose. After all, the ceremony and dress of the Church has its primary purpose in giving glory to God, but secondarily it is for the edification of the faithful to see God glorified. It was on this principle that Pope Alexander VI ordered Cardinal Ximenes to wear all the Episcopal Regalia and sleep in a bed rather than wear his franciscan habit and sleep on a board.
I would like to think that Cardinal Ximenes’ monastic simplicity and doctrinal rectitude did more to edify the faithful in the glory of God than any amount of Borgia worldliness.
Athanasius,
I have often wondered about starting a movement to have a tiara made for His Holiness, like the Hungarians did for John Paul II. Something tells me that Benedict XVI would be more inclined to eventually use it than John Paul II, though, probably not by much.