Introibo- with Flowers

A sad, leaky tent for the King of kings "Rejoice in the Lord always..." Whenever I hear this Epistle, my mind immediately rewinds three decades to the song, sung in rounds, that was popular during my Protestant upbringing.  It was a cheerful, monotonous, quasi-hypnotic ditty.   "Rejoice, rejoice and again I say rejoice.  Rejoice, rejoice and again I say rejoice"... and on and on it went. Lamentably joy is not one of the fruits of the Holy Ghost that seems to thrive in my spiritual garden.  Especially now.  To be quite honest, this year has driven anima mea to doubts, depths and dregs that I had never thought possible in my twenty-five years as a Roman Catholic.  The spiritual fortification of two years of the Traditional Latin Mass is the only reason I am still standing.  God does indeed give us exactly what we need when we need it.   After a month of Covid lockdown our TLM diocesan priest was transferred and overnight we went from mul...

  The liturgical year of 2020 was historically dark in many ways.  In this post I will highlight a cause for celebration: the first Latin Nuptial Mass for our rural community in over fifty years!  I was honored to be asked to do the flower arrangements for the church wedding. The lovely bride chose butter yellow carnations, saladago, irises and baby's breath.  The mother of the groom pre-ordered the flowers which made my job a lot easier! On Wednesday before the Saturday wedding, she dropped off the flowers and some leatherleaf fern.  I  also picked up some white mums and yellow alstroemeria as I felt that some additional flowers were needed to fill out the arrangements.  I went to my free greenery source and cut privet, eucalyptus, cedar, pittosporum, and magnolia leaves.   Originally I was told the preferred flower colors for the wedding were blue, yellow and white.  In late summer, I dried some blue hydrangeas, hoping I could tuck the...