A Year of Lasts

We have entered into a year of lasts. Every Sunday, every Feast, we celebrate the Holy Mass in the English of the Ordinary Form, we use the lame-duck ICEL translation for those Proper Texts for the last time. Never again will we have to hear the prayer, for instance, of the First Sunday of Advent in the dumbed-down translation.
There are stories out that the CDW - Congregation of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments - has "tweaked" the translation from the gray-book that was produced. Some say their changes are not improvements. Well, we have no where to go but up from the current translation. Fr Z has commentary and translations that are good -- see his blog for more.
Today is the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle. Traditionally the prayer in honor of the birth of Christ begins today (perhaps last night to make a total of 27 days, a triple-novena). The text of the prayer is:
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, (here mention specific intention of Novena) through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
The St Andrew Novena is said fifteen times each night beginning on the Feast of St Andew (again, it probably began after First Vespers of the Feast, which was celebrated until the simplification of the Liturgy in 1960-61 by John XXIII). If one begins on the eve of St Andrew's Feast, through Christmas Night, it comprises 27 days of a triple-Novena.
Happy Advent!

Wow! Has it been that long?

I guess I've been busy or uninspired or something. I haven't posted in over a year! Where do I start?

Things are moving along here. Nice to have one's own place! That said, I have discovered lately that it is of little consolation to us who are living in the other 5% of the country that AT&T Mobility covers 95% of the country. I'm asking myself why I need to buy a $150 microcell in order to use the phone!

It's been a long year in some ways. The struggle of getting a building project off the ground when some are interested in functionalism... They wonder why it is that we can't just build a church that is an aluminum structure. They wonder why it should be shaped like a cross (i.e., cruciform); it costs too much money to have all of those angles, they say. Are they serious? Do they really think the House of God and Gate of Heaven should be modeled after a barn????

Then, there's the whole issue of wondering why we can't build the church on the outskirts of town, where there's more land. Yeah there's more land because it's not populated! The idea is that people can easily get to the church, so it should be in (or as close a possible to) the center of town. By the way, the ones who want it on the outskirts are not the ones who come outside of Sunday! There is daily Mass folks, as well as the possibility of adoring our Lord and King present in the Tabernacle!