As Cardinal Mercier said : "When prudence is everywhere, courage is nowhere."                                                                                  From Cardinal Sarah : "In order to avoid hearing God's music, we have chosen to use all the devices of this world. But heaven's instruments will not stop playing just because some people are deaf."                                                                                              Saint John-Paul II wrote: "The fact that one can die for the faith shows that other demands of the faith can also be met."                                                 Cardinal Müller says, “For the real danger to today’s humanity is the greenhouse gases of sin and the global warming of unbelief and the decay of morality when no one knows and teaches the difference between good and evil.”                                                  St Catherine of Siena said, “We've had enough exhortations to be silent. Cry out with a thousand tongues - I see the world is rotten because of silence.”                                                  Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”                                                Brethren, Wake up!

8th DECEMBER - SOLEMNITY OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

This most important Feast of the Church will be marked in the Conventual Church with a Sung Mass at 6.30 pm, at which the music will be provided by the choir 'Cantores Missae'.

The music for Mass will be:
Missa Trahe me post te Victoria
Tota pulchra es Palestrina
Sacerdotes Domini Palestrina
Alma redemptoris mater Palestrina

Later in the evening, at 9 pm, the solemn Alma Remptoris Mater will be followed by Tallis's Videte Miraculum, sung by the choir 'Schola Baptista', in honour of Our Blessed and Immaculate Mother.

Videte miraculum matris Domini: concepit virgo virilis ignara consortii,
stans onerata nobili onere Maria; et matrem se laetam cognosci, quae se
nescit uxorem. Haec speciosum forma prae filiis hominum castis concepit
visceribus, et benedicta in aeternum Deum nobis protulit et hominem.


Behold the miracle of the mother of the Lord; a virgin has conceived though she knows not a man,
Mary, who stands laden with her noble Burden; knowing not that she is a wife, she rejoices to be a mother.
She has conceived in her chaste womb one Who is beautiful beyond the sons of men,
and blessed for ever, she has brought forth God and man for us.

The painting shows Saint Francis and Blessed John Duns Scotus venerating Our Lady's Immaculate Conception.  Duns Scotus preached this Dogma in England in the 13th Century, nearly two centuries before the Feast was established universally in the Church by Pope Sixtus IV, when this was truly a Catholic country.

Dos tua, Virgo Pia, hæc est.
Posted on Monday, November 16, 2009
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