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Showing posts from July, 2020

Sursum Corda: Gold and White Altar Flowers

Our new home!  After a month of praying, fasting and negotiating, the Traditional Latin Mass has found and new and gracious home.  And what better place in our rural community than this small parish in an historic town known for its architectual quaintness? They welcomed us with open arms and hearts.  Deo gratias.   Restoration has been underway for some time:  the altar rail perhaps stowed away in a forgotten closet, the ambo hovering in the back corner of the nave with yellow caution tape.  A diamond in the rough.  Here is a glimpse of the past... Dedicated in 1896 In preparation for the first Traditional Latin Mass held in the church in half a century, I placed four arrangements of gold and white on the altar shelf.   They seemed completely insignificant compared with the vibrant colors surrounding the reredos.  In this church, bold colors and lines will be appropriate to draw focus toward the tabernacle.  I...

Bitter Trials: Altar Flowers for the Feast of the Sacred Heart

If you are not familiar with Evelyn Waugh's  correspondence  with Cardinal Heenan, I recommend it during this social and ecclesiastical crisis.  It provides insight into what those of traditional Catholic persuasion were thinking when the Latin Mass was wrenched away from them.  Waugh also expresses what life is like for him without the Mass which he loved so dearly- a bitter, bitter trial.  I have always felt that Waugh might have been a kindred spirit.  After reading his personal correspondence, I am certain.  Our good curĂ©, got the word from the chancery that he would be transferred July 1.  This was a shock, especially after months of quarantine.  Sixty to a hundred congregants,  a schola cantorum, an army of servers vying to be thurifer.  We had been cancelled.  The closest reliable Traditional Latin Mass is a four-hour drive of windy coastal roads.  "What now?" we asked. Arrangements for the final...