A priest shows altar boys how to sing the Sunday Epistle in Latin. Yes, they are singing. Yes, they are singing Latin. Yes, it’s from the Letter of the Apostle James and not something the boys already know. Yes, it can be done. No, Latin isn’t too hard.
Welcome registrants:
Agathontohen
Gulag California
Seber
At 05:49 the sun rose on Rome and it will slip beneath the horizon at 20:25. The Ave Maria Bell is to ring at 20:45.
In the Novus Ordo calendar it is the Feast of St. Matthias. I have a priest friend in Switzerland thusly named. I hope he is well.
Today is the Feast of St. Corona, who was martyred with her husband Victor. Victor and Corona… sounds like a couple of makes of cars… or beers. Buy beer from the Benedictines. Anyway, during not very entertaining COVID Theatre the great people Leaflet Missal in St. Paul make statues of St. Corona, who was torn in half between two trees that had been pulled over. 
Not very nice. The statue is nice, however.
You can get your statue of St. Corona. HERE
From the sublime to the ridiculous, I made another little chicken last night, with bits and pieces of veg and herbs that needed using up. Celery, tomatoes, onions, fennel, carrot.
Having extracted everything but the juices I reduced. I didn’t like the look of this at all.
After I strained it, I tempered some wine and flour with warm juice and then started working it in.
Whack that little bird in half. Scissors work. Speaking of halves.
Some pane integrale di Lanuvio that was about to go into the “This Is Now Like Rock” bag, softened with gravy.
I’m back in the mode of never going out to eat.
I should constrain myself to go to a couple of places.
The Romanian stage of the Chess Tour is on and concludes today. Alireza Firouza, ever more dangerous, gained on Fabiano Caruana by breaking through Ian Nepomniachtchi’s fortress. HERE Anish Giri took down Ding Liren with a knight sac. Bloody. There was wierd energy because Richard Rapport and Bogdan-Daniel Deac at the beginning when Richard didn’t retract the “guest first move” and Bogdan wanted him to. No handshake. Bog slapped the clock button and Rapport went to talk to the Arbiter. Wesley So. Let’s go, Wesley! Drew with Fabiano. Just didn’t want to fight.
Here’s a puzzle.
White is threatening mate. Black to move… and mate!
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
As I said before. Buy some beer from the traditional Benedictine monks in Norcia. It is REALLY GOOD.
Finally, I saw a thing on Twitter, people posting contrasting images with the caption:
The two sides of my personality, constantly fighting.
Here’s my try.
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This past week I was having dinner at a Knights of Columbus meeting. We got around to talking about altar servers. A few of the guys over 70 remembered serving during the days when Mass was in Latin and that was quite a bit to learn. One guy is a recently ordained permanent deacon (he gives challenging homilies and stands up for the Church) who went to a Catholic all boys boarding school in the early 1970s.
I was an altar boy during the late 1970s through the 1980s. Oftentimes I served with my older brother. One thing I remember too much was we basically just “went through the motions” serving, getting there 15 minutes before Mass and oftentimes finding the priest having a cigarette beforehand. We were telling some funny altar boy stories such as getting a “whiff of cigarette smoke while holding the book” and sometimes forgetting the next step (our training was minimal so it took my brother and I a while to develop a system) and I still remember one Sunday circa 1978 (I was in 5th grade) where we seemed to be just serving on the fly so to speak.
Anyway as I reflect on my time serving I found I got more of the “day to day exposure” of a priest than the average pew sitter but I wish I would have learned more of the proper terminology and more about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The example that this priest is setting with these servers will speak volumes and go far.
“I’m back in the mode of never going out to eat. I should constrain myself to go to a couple of places”.
Oh heavens, Faddah – don’t!! Constrain thyself not. How otherwise would we ever get the great recommendations on where to go for great nosh when in the Caput Mundi? Which it’s I hopes to be again pretty soon (channeling Preserved Killick).
Recognising, of course, that such doesn’t come cheap a small donative hath been sent.
Keep noshing, Faddah. And photographing.
But Father! But Father! Making those poor altar boys sing in Latin? It’s too hard! Besides we should doing the readings in English! Well maybe in Spanish too, if there are Latinos in the congregation. And also whatever languages for the indigenous peoples, oh and some places have immigrants from different places like Vietnam. We need to be inclusive! Nobody understands Latin and besides it is clericalism and … and … well you hate Vatican II!!!
Ahh, those “bad old days” before The Council when – despite the “incomprehensibility” of a “mumbled” Latin liturgy and “archaic” rubrics larded with “useless repetitions”, the majority of adult male Catholics had learned to serve Mass – properly – in their youth… I am reminded of the family stories about one of my great-uncles (a railway motorman, d.1963) commandeering the kitchen on Sunday afternoons, pushing the table up against the wall, and drilling his two sons and several of their friends in the finer points of serving… there is the example of Bobby Kennedy (whilst serving as AG in his brother’s administration) pinch-hitting as server at a weekday low Mass in Hyannis ca. 1962… my own experience of seeing a retired justice of the state’s Supreme Court arriving at the TLM in Boston in his 70’s and regularly checking-in to make sure there were enough servers (when there weren’t, he served!
Somehow this same ethos is not being inculcated today… it’s not just that the yewts in most parishes are receiving perfunctory training from Bob the “youth group coordinator” and “Sister Pat” the pantsuited “pastoral associate”… “it’s the liturgy, stupid!”
In closing I’d note another sad irony: the same Council which called for the “permanent diaconate” initiated a reform of the Mass which has largely removed the liturgical role of the deacon… is he the priest’s server? The guest homilist? A concelebrant? No wonder the faithful are confused!
My heart swells when I see a father & son serve together at our TLM. Or grandfather and grandson.
There’s one father who was pairing off with each son and as that son got it, he went on to the next one. Now the brothers serve and dad is back in the pew but not for long as there’s some more young sons who’ll be coming along.
And these boys at my church are impressive. They know all the responses and they are exact in their movements. Some seem to be not much more than 8 or 9 maybe 10.
We have a young man who is special needs and he also serves.
My grandson can’t wait until he’s old enough.
Two sides of a personality – here’s one for the current state of the Church:
– Everyone holds hand singing Kumbaya
– Borg drone assimilating a human
White is threating mate with a forcing sequence starting with Bb6+ followed by Qa7+, so Black has to find a forcing sequence of its own. Thus:
1…Nd2+ 2. Kc1 Nb3++ 3. Kb1 (if 3. Kd1 Qd2#) Qc1+! 4. Rxc1 Nd2#. A smothered mate of sorts, thanks to that long-range Bishop on g7 guarding the long diagonal.