Our Lady's Month I - Queen of the May!

Urbi et Orbi Easter 2011

Building Religious Communities (2)

NUNS AT WORK


FARMING NUNS


NUNS' VOWS (aka LADYWELL CONVENT)


Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu!

Building Religious Communities (1)

CONVENT BUILDERS


NUNS BUILD SCHOOL IN AUSTRALIA


NUNS LEARN WOODWORK


Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto femineo sexu!

Father Prout

Today is the birthday of Francis Sylvester Mahony known as 'Father Prout'. With a nom de blog like mine, the thought came to me that I ought to make some tribute to the author of The Bells of Shandon. As it turned out, his story brings side-lights into many of the stories that I have already published.

The Catholic Encyclopedia gives a good biography upon which the authors of wikipedia have been unable to improve and which the Diocese of Cork and Ross has adopted in its entirity. The most notable points are that having studied with the Jesuits in Clongowes Wood, he spent a few years as a novice with them and became a teacher of rhetoric at his own school, the great Canon Sheehan being one of his pupils, but he was dismissed for leading some of the students on a drunken outing to Celbridge. He studied in a variety of Continental Seminaries and was ordained at Lucca in Italy in 1832, against all advice. He returned to his native Diocese, where he served as a zealous and hardworking hospital chaplain during a cholera epidemic, where he won the life-long friendship and admiration of Father Mathew, the Capuchin Temperance campaigner. Among the ecclesiastical misadventures of 'Father Prout' was to be the attempt to have Father Mathew made Bishop of Cork!

The misadventure that led to Father Mahony's leaving the Diocese - and the active Priesthood - was his campaign to be given the living of 'the brickfield chapel,' that was to become St. Patrick's Church on the Lower Glanmire Road, then a chapel-of-ease to the Cathedral Parish. Father Mahony had been the principal fundraiser for the building of the new Church, which, I think you'll agree, is a fine building, and a magnificent achievement that was virtually the first new Church built in the City in two generations. The disappointment of Father Mahony, who had proved himself apostolic and capable, was understandable, especially when met with the immovable object of Bishop Murphy (r. 1815 - 1847).

He moved to London and held his own amid the literary greats of the time, although his name is now 'writ in water.' We read in The Catholic Encyclopedia: "Dowered with a retentive memory, irrepressible humor, large powers of expression, and a strongly satiric turn of mind, an omnivorous reader, well-trained in the Latin classics, thoroughly at home in the French and Italian languages, and a ready writer of rhythmic verse in English, Latin, and French, he produced... an extraordinary mixture of erudition, fancy, and wit, such as is practically without precise parallel in contemporary literature. The best of his work appeared in "Fraser's Magazine" during the first three years of his literary life. He translated largely from Horace, and the poets of France and Italy, including a complete and free metrical rendering of Gresset's famous mocking poem "Vert-Vert" and Jerome Vida's "Silkworm". But his newspaper correspondence from Rome and Paris is notable chiefly for the vigours of his criticisms upon men and measures, expressed, as these were, in most caustic language."

The Catholic Encyclopedia is not noted for its forgiving tone towards renegades but it expresses itself generously towards Mahony: "Although for thirty years Mahony did not exercise his priestly duties, he never wavered in his deep loyalty to the church, recited his Office daily, and received the last sacraments at the hands of his old friend, Abbé Rogerson, who left abundant testimony of his excellent dispositions."

His roguish humour caused him to adopt the name of a certain Father Prout of Watergrasshill as his nom de plume.

The original Father Prout had been forced from his Diocese (Cashel) on account of a wrangle with Archbishop Butler over his refusal to agree to the amalgamation of his Parish, which he described as "the greatest injustice since the partition of Poland." Fortunately, he was welcomed into the neighbouring Diocese of Cork by Dr. Moylan.

Mahony's fictional Father Prout seems no less sanguine, although he claimed to be a French-educated parish priest, the son of Dean Swift and Stella, who writes works such as The Apology for Lent in scholarly praise of fish!

When he died on 18th May, 1866, as we have read, fortified by the rites of Holy Mother Church, his body was taken back to Cork for a Solemn Requiem Mass in St. Patrick's Church "the church which", in the words of his biographers, "was the dream of his impetuous youth," as his biography says, from where he was taken to his family vault in St. Ann's Churchyard, Shandon, to be buried in the shadow of the bells he immortalized.



The Reliques of Father Prout, is perhaps his most famous work and it is in that collection that his true claim to fame, The Bells of Shandon, is to be found as part of The Rogueries of Tom Moore.

In my opinion, it is the true anthem of Cork, although the words of The Banks and Beautiful City were handed out to every school child in the city by the Lord Mayor last year! The Bells has none of those shameless hussies pressing wild daisies and Beautiful City lifts "the sweet bells of Shandon were dear to my mind." I may stand on a Shandon Belle ticket in the next mayoral election!

The clip consists of that fine ecumenical anthem Iníon an Phailitínigh (a Kerry song, mind you) and a verse of The Bells sung by Seán Ó Sé, whose own voice is another contender to be the true anthem of Cork!

THE BELLS OF SHANDON

With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee ;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine,
While at a glibe rate
Brass tongues would vibrate —
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine ;
For memory dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

I've heard bells tolling
Old "Adrian's Mole" in,
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame ;
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly ; —
O! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

There 's a bell in Moscow,
While on tower and kiosk o !
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them ;
But there is an anthem
More dear to me, —
'Tis the bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the river Lee.

Urbi et Orbi Christmas 2010

A Thought For The Day by Pope Benedict XVI

This morning Pope Benedict XVI broadcast 'Thought for the Day,' a regular two-minute-forty-second pious meditation during the morning news programme 'Today' on BBC Radio 4, which airs every weekday morning.

The BBC website gives the text of the broadcast:

"Recalling with great fondness my four-day visit to the United Kingdom last September, I am glad to have the opportunity to greet you once again, and indeed to greet listeners everywhere as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.

Our thoughts turn back to a moment in history when God's chosen people, the children of Israel, were living in intense expectation.

They were waiting for the Messiah that God had promised to send and they pictured him as a great leader who would rescue them from foreign domination and restore their freedom.

God is always faithful to his promises, but he often surprises us in the way he fulfils them.

The child that was born in Bethlehem did indeed bring liberation, but not only for the people of that time and place - he was to be the Saviour of all people throughout the world and throughout history.

And it was not a political liberation that he brought, achieved through military means; rather, Christ destroyed death forever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross.

And while he was born in poverty and obscurity, far from the centres of earthly power, he was none other than the Son of God.

Out of love for us, he took upon himself our human condition, our fragility, our vulnerability and he opened up for us the path that leads to the fullness of life to a share in the life of God himself.

As we ponder this great mystery in our hearts this Christmas, let us give thanks to God for his goodness to us and let us joyfully proclaim to those around us the good news that God offers us freedom from whatever weighs us down: he gives us hope, he brings us life.

Dear Friends from Scotland, England, Wales and indeed every part of the English-speaking world. I want you to know that I keep all of you very much in my prayers this Holy Season.

I pray for your families, for your children, for those who are sick and for those who are going through any form of hardship at this time.

I pray especially for the elderly and for those who are approaching the end of their days.

I ask Christ, the light of the nations, to dispel whatever darkness there may be in your lives and to grant to every one of you the grace of a peaceful and joyful Christmas.

May God bless all of you!"

November - Month of the Holy Souls (5)

As is our tradition, on this last day of the Month of the Holy Souls, let us remember to pray for deceased Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and Priests, especially those who have nobody to pray for them.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis!

Forget not the Boys of Kilmichael

General Tom Barry's account of the Ambush at Kilmichael includes the following reference:

"...At 3 a.m. the men were told for the first time they were moving in to attack the Auxiliaries between Macroom and Dunmanway. Father O'Connell, P.P., Ballineen, had ridden out to hear the men's Confessions, and was waiting by the side of a ditch, some distance from the road. Silently, one by one, their rifles slung, the IRA went to him, and then returned to the ranks. Soon the priest came on the road. In a low voice, he spoke, 'Are the boys going to attach the Sassanach, Tom?' 'Yes, Father, we hope so.' He asked no further question, but said in a loud voice, 'Good luck, boys, I know you will win. God keep ye all. Now I will give you my Blessing.' He rode away into the darkness of the night..."

Patrick Canon O'Connell, was born on 4th March, 1864, at Knockane, Dunmanway, and was ordained a Priest at Maynooth on 24th June, 1890. He had been appointed Parish Priest of Enniskeane in June, 1918 and was created a Canon on 4th July, 1934. He died on 31st January, 1946. When he rode out to minister to the Volunteers that night in November, 1920, he risked not only his life but possibly the disapproval of his Bishop, Dr. Coholan, who, a fortnight later, excommunicated all - Volunteers and British Forces alike - participating in ambush, kidnap and murder. Canon O'Connell was to risk his life once again when he met the Volunteers in the dead of night at Castletown Kenneigh Graveyard to bury their dead.

As we remember 'in song and in story' the Boys of Kilmichael, let us also remember Canon O'Connell.

The Ballad of Kilmichael

Oh forget not the boys of Kilmichael,
Those brave boys both gallant and true.
They fought with Tom Barry's bold column,
And conquered the red, white and blue.

Whilst we honour in song and in story,
The memory of Pearse and McBride.
Whose names are illumined in glory,
With martyrs that long since have died.
Oh forget not the boys of Kilmichael,
Who feared not the ice and the foe.
Oh the day that they marched into battle,
They laid all the Black and Tans low.

On the twenty-eighth day of November,
The Tans left the town of Macroom.
They were seated in Crossley tenders,
Which brought them right into their doom.
They were on the high road to Kilmichael,
And never expecting to stall.
'Twas there that the boys of the column,
They made a clear sweep of them all.

The sun in the west it was sinking,
'Twas the eve of a cold winter's day.
When the Tans we were eagerly waiting,
Sailed into the spot where we lay.
And over the hill went the echo,
The peal of the rifles and guns.
And the smoke from their lorries bore tidings,
That the boys of Kilmichael had won.

The battle being over at twilight,
And there in that glen so obscure.
We threw down our rifles and bayonets,
And made our way back to Granure.
And high over Dunmanway town, my boys,
They sang of the brave and the true.
Of the men from Tom Barry's bold column,
Who conquered the red, white and blue.

There are some who will blush at the mention,
Of Connolly, Pearse and McBride.
And history's new scribes in derision,
The pages of valour deny.
But sure here's to the boys who cried, Freedom!
When Ireland was nailed to the mast.
And they fought with Tom Barry's bold column,
To give us our freedom at last.

So forget not the boys of Kilmichael,
Those brave boys both gallant and true.
They fought 'neath the green flag of Erin,
And conquered the red, white and blue.

November - Month of the Holy Souls (4)

After the era of Faith and the era of Reform, came the era of scepticism, which coincides with the era of classical music. The Christian Civilization of Western Europe remained, not intact or unchallenged, but remained, nevertheless, as the bedrock of all European thought and expression. The 'Mass' remained a basic musical setting for composers, even if they were less and less suitable as liturgical pieces.

Antonín Dvořák, 'though devout and composer of many notable pieces based upon liturgical texts, gives us a good example of what went wrong, from the liturgical point of view, with European music.

His Requiem uses the liturgical texts but does violence to them to satisfy symphonic conventions. The Introit and Kyrie form one movement, which is practically correct since, if they were ever used in a liturgical setting there would be hardly a point in a pause. However, it places a clear priority on musical convention over liturgical. The texts are elsewhere rearranged to suit performance, for which, indeed, it was intended rather than liturgical use, as is shown by it's debut in Birmingham in 1891.

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Missa Cantata, or sung Low Mass, offered on the Last Sunday after Pentecost at the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Nicholas of Chardonnet in Paris, France. This same video may also be viewed (in segments) on YouTube.

November - Month of the Holy Souls (3)

Once it had been found that polyphony was not inconsistent with the solemnity of the Requiem, polyphonic settings, and indeed, settings in the style of the age were to abound. Most famous for his Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae of 1585, certainly his work most frequently heard in Churches that are blessed to have the Holy Week Ceremonies in the Traditional Rite, Tomás Luis de Victoria was one of the standard-bearers of Counter-Reformation music, according to the mind of the Council of Trent.



His Officium Defunctorum of 1605, composed for the obsequies of the Empress Maria, who was his patroness through most of his composing career, is predominantly a setting of the Requiem Mass. He had composed another setting about twenty years earlier. His Requiem, like that of Mozart, was his last work. Oddly to the ear, the chant themes that are the basis of the setting are given to the higher registers of the six parts.

November - Month of the Holy Souls (2)

The Low Countries, a middle Europe that extended to Burgndy - and that would emerge again as the powerhouse of a modern united Europe - had held onto, or retrieved, the great inheritance of Charlemagne at the forefront of Western Christian Civilization during the High Middle Ages. The Devotio Moderna is but one example of the debt that the Christian West owes to the Low Countries of this period.

The purity of Plain Chant gave way to the more elaborate beauty of Polyphony, in much the same way as the purity of Romanesque gave way to the more elaborate beauty of the Gothic. So too, as the Low Countries led the way in culture, in fashion, in architecture, and in piety, did they also in music and the Franco-Flemish School was to the fore in European music of the 15th and 16th Centuries.



Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410-1497) was the leader of the second generation of the Franco-Flemish school, born in modern-day Belgium, he died at Tours, in the heart of Valois France. His Requiem, one of 14 Masses that he composed, is the earliest extant polyphonic setting of the Requiem. It is, however, extremely austere and is in a 'faux bourdon' style with a predominating bass line. The setting is incomplete in the form that comes down to us, and lacks the and Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Once again, for contrast, I only include the Introit and Kyrie.

November - Month of the Holy Souls (1)

This year, to mark the Month of the Holy Souls, we're going to look at the development of the Requiem. The first video is the Introit of the Vatican Edition Gregorian Chant Requiem Mass, first in single voice and then by a choir.

Our Marian Catholic Heritage

This excerpt from EWTN is an interview broadcast on 11th August, 2010, with Donna O'Connor, a member of St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association, about the Shrine of Our Lady at Knock, Co. Mayo, Ireland.

Our Lady of Knock, pray for us!

Summorum Pontificum - Tres Abhinc Annos

This day brings together three themes that have figured in the mind recently. The first, the Most Holy Sacrament, and the honour due to it. The second, Our Most Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, as he begins his visit to Britain. The third, the third anniversary of the coming into force of Summorum Pontificum. For all his many gifts, especially those wrought through Our Holy Father the Pope, thanks be to God!

Commodius Temples

That excellent blog New Liturgical Movement has once again scooped up a gem. This time, it is a lecture given in honour of Sir John Gilbert upon the Catholic Churches of nineteenth century Dublin. The lecturer is Dr. Brendan Grimes. The lecture was given on 21 January last.

View more webinars from dubcilib.

Summorum Pontificum - Tres Abhinc Annos

I remember where I was the day that the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was issued. The rumours of an Apostolic Letter freeing the Latin Mass had been flying around since the reign of John Paul II. There had been many false hopes raised. Would this be another one?

I was kneeling in the Chapel of Cardinal Newman's University Church, Dublin. The Sodality of Our Lady had received permission for a monthly Latin Mass a few months earlier from the Archbishop. At 11 a.m. on Saturday, 7th July, 2007, the first Mass was celebrated. We had just begun singing the Kyrie when a text came through from a friend in Rome - I know what you're going to say but I think you'll excuse me this once for having my mobile on in Church - that at 12 noon Rome time, 11 a.m. Irish time, the long awaited Charter for the Restoration of the Latin Mass had been published.

Deo Gratias!

Mass for Ascension Thursday in Cork

St. Colman's Society for Catholic Liturgy have just asked that the following be posted:

Ascension Thursday, 13th May, 2010

Solemn High Mass for the Solemnity of the Ascension of Our Lord will be celebrated in Ss. Peter and Paul's Church, Cork City, on 13th May, 2010, at 7.30 pm.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palastrina's Missa Brevis will be sung.

Kyrie


Gloria


Credo


Sanctus


Agnus Dei

Ss. Peter and Paul, pray for us!

Making the News (Part 7)

Another highlight of the year, to judge by the frequency with which it appears in the Pathé archive, is the annual meeting of the Catholic Truth Society.

Dante and the Church. The Most Reverend Dr. Codd, Reverend R. Fleming, Count Plunkett and other distinguished Clergy who read papers at the Catholic Truth Society Conference in 1921.

Catholic Truth Conference 1923. Mr Kevin O'Higgins delivers address at the Mansion House, Dublin. Ireland.

His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, and other members of Irish Hierarchy, who are taking part in the Catholic Truth Conference in Dublin, 1926.

Catholic Truth Week 1928. Members meet at Mansion House Dublin for their annual conference.