Sigh, Another Meteor Shower Missed

Since I have been back in the Midwest, coming to Illinois and then, Iowa, I have missed the great meteor showers for one reason-agricultural haze.

Believe it or not, on a night without clouds, London skies are clearer than those in the Bread Basket. The haze comes from the pollen of corn and soybeans, as well as from the dust from the herbicides and pesticides.

It is a lovely warm summer night with a few wispy clouds, but mostly clear, except for haze. At midnight, I went out to see the Perseids--sigh, no such luck.

Haze, haze, haze....and light pollution.

Some of the best sky watching I have done was when I was staying with my dear friend, C, in Kent (see 2011 and on, posts). The meteor showers were spectacular, as she lives two city blocks from the white cliffs between Dover and Folkestone.

Great skies....

Here, the cicadas are singing, the tree frogs croaking out those odd, tenor insect sounds, and the large ground hog, which lives under the back porch, rustles about sniffing for something good to eat out of the garden.

But, I cannot see one shooting star.

Sigh...double wish I was in Kent at C's, as STS is there right now, watching the thunderstorm over the Channel, which will ruin today's cricket match in Canterbury, most likely forcing a draw.

Heads UP!

I am discovering that English readers and other English friends have awakened to see the signs of the times. I wonder what the issue was that created this new awareness of what is really happening to the Church there.

It is clear that more English blog readers have come to understand that religious freedoms have and are eroding so fast that we are entering the era of Lord of the World.

Heads are out of the sand. Many Catholics now respond to the reality of the crises both in the Church and in the secular government of Great Britain. I sincerely pray for heroes and saints on that side of the pond.

Pray for England. Pray for America. I shall post later today.

Patronal Feast of This Blog

Happy St. Etheldreda's Day....yesterday here was More and Fisher, and today this wonderful saint, who watches over me on the blog.

Wish I was someplace where the priests would use the optional memorial...

Her church in London is in Ely Place, if you have a chance to go there--a little gem. Ely Places is named after her lands and monastery which use to be there, eventually becoming the land of the bishops of Ely. Etheldreda's big monastery, a dual monastery, was near Ely, sort of...in East Anglia, where she had been a royal princess. She was abbess over both sides of the monastery.

Please pray to her today for me and my intentions, please. I am having a TLM said for all my blog readers but cannot tell you the date.

If you literature bugs remember the discussion of lace in Pride and Prejudice, you may recall that lace was placed in a particular place at the top of the dress for modesty. When the lace became cheap, it was called "tawdy", as it was sold at the fairs on St. Audrey's Day, Audrey being another name for St. Etheldreda. Aubrey for a girl is also a derivative.

Now, tawdry means something cheap and nasty, like carnival toys or mementoes.

User:Ras52, OpenStreet Map, Amitchell125 for above map and "Saint Ethelreda's Statue, Ely Cathedral" by Jim Linwood - originally posted to Flickr as Saint Ethelreda's Statue, Ely Cathedral.. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Years ago, I visited Ely Cathedral where there is a shrine to St. Etheldreda above.  I am taking the rest of the day off blogging as a little celebration! In the meantime, you may want to read, if you have not yet, the 25 posts I have on The Encyclical.....

St. George's Day, 2015

Thinking that England needs prayers more than praise, here, for St. George's Day let us pray for that once great brave, and long ago, Catholic nation.

Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary for England

O blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry" and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee. By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world; and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more. Plead for us thy children, whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we may all deserve to see and praise God, together with thee, in our heavenly home. 

Amen.

Eye Candy and Good News from Britain

http://www.lmschairman.org/2015/04/lms-priest-training-in-prior-park-photos.html

Repost for Good Friday

Thursday, 11 April 2013

NO MORE HIDING PLACES?: On Being a Recusant Catholic or Conscientious Christian from Another Denomination in 2013

Posted by Supertradmum

Where are the hiding places? 

LifeSiteNews in the article I just noted in the last post, also refers to two other cases where those who have had religious convictions against gay marriage have been persecuted. Fines are persecutions. Ask the descendants of the once wealthy Recusant families in England. 

However many families, including the Mores, the Ropers, the Throckmortons, the Selbys, the Bounts, the Arundels (for centuries), and perhaps even the Shakespeares were fined over and over and over. From 1581, one sees this in the annals. Many families fled to France. Some were torn to pieces as sides were taken, such as in the Throckmorton Family. Some came to the States and Canada, such as the family noted below in the note. There are few, if any, hiding places NOW.

Recusancy. After 1581, recusancy became an indictable offence, so recusants often appear in quarter sessions records and the fines levied were recorded in the pipe rolls. After 1592 a separate series of rolls, the recusant rolls was created for this purpose which continues until 1691. The pipe rolls also contain the accounts of fines and forfeitures of lands collected under the recusancy acts. Pipe and recusancy rolls are available for viewing at TNA. In 1581, the fine for missing an Anglican service was raised to twenty pounds per month. Also, in that year, a treasonable offence resulting in death was committed by anyone converting to Catholicism or attempting to convert others to the religion. In addition, a fine of 100 marks and a year in prison was imposed on those hearing mass. The details of criminal proceeding and fines levied should be contained within quarter session records. An Act of 1581 also forbade the Catholic education of children. Notice the last sentence. Parents were no longer allowed to raise their children in the Catholic Faith. Are you paying attention? More on the flower fines from another angle. FromLifeSiteNews. There are more links. The combination of legalizing same-sex “marriage” and odious “anti-discrimination” laws have faithful Christians saying their freedom of religion is being violated. And the court cases are piling up. An appeals court in New Mexico found a Christian couple, Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, guilty of “discrimination” for refusing to photograph a homosexual “wedding.” They were ordered to pay more than $6,600 in fines after denying their services. Canadian homosexual activists demanded “born again Christian” florist Kimberly Evans of New Brunswick be taken to court for refusing to sell flowers for a gay “wedding.” Victoria Childress of Des Moines also faced threats of legal action for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual ceremony on the grounds that it violated her Christian faith. More on the Recusancy Laws can be found here. I have taken a few of the laws and copied these. 1592 The first separate recusant rolls were compiled consisting mainly of Catholics and lasted up to 1691 (previously recusancy was recorded in the pipe rolls). The rolls recorded the punishments and fines of those who refused to conform to the Anglican doctrine. Memoranda Rolls 1217-1835: includes records of seizure of recusants' lands. 1593 Catholics were obliged to obtain permission to travel beyond five miles from their homes and those absent from home for more than three months were to leave the country. Another Act of the same year ordered that people of the age of 16 who refused to attend an Anglican service were to be imprisoned. Catholics had to worship in isolated places 1606 The Oath of Allegiance was introduced, denying the authority of the Pope and those that refused to swear the oath were liable to be imprisoned. Convicted recusants were ordered to receive Anglican communion once a year or face a fine or seizure of their property. Recusants were also barred from office and professions including the military. Informers were paid £50 for revealing a priest saying mass or persons attending mass. All the restrictions applied to a Protestant who married a Catholic wife. 1625 Catholics forced to pay a double rate of taxation. Tax records can be found in Lay Subsidy Rolls and Catholics and other nonconformists should be recognisable as they paid a double rate. 1661 Clarendon Code 1661-1665. Four Acts passed designed to emasculate the power of nonconformists. Corporation Act. (1661). Catholics and other nonconformists were excluded from official posts unless they took the sacrament of holy communion at an Anglican service. 1662 Act of Conformity. The Act excluded Catholics from holding church office. 1662 Conventicle Act. Made meetings for Catholic and nonconformist worship illegal, even in private houses, where more than four outsiders were present 1665 The Five-Mile Act. Nonconformist and Catholic ministers were forbidden to live or visit within five miles of a town or any other place where they had preached. 1672 Declaration of Indulgence. The Penal Laws against Catholics were relaxed. 1673 Test Act. The strength of anti-Catholic feeling led parliament to order the enforcement of the recusancy laws and pass the Test Act in retaliation against the Declaration of Indulgence. The Act required all those taking up an official post, civil or military, to take the oath and to submit a sacrament certificate that they had taken Anglican communion. Between 1689 and 1702, the requirement to take the oaths and test was extended to beneficed clergy, members of the universities, lawyers, schoolteachers and preachers. The declarations can be found in TNA. 1676 A proclamation ordered a survey of every recusant aged 16 and over. The names were handed to the local Justice of the Peace who called on those named to take the oath or be jailed. 1678 The Popish Plot. A fictitious plot made up by Titus Oates which alleged that Catholics were planning to assassinate King Charles II and bring the Catholic Duke of York to the throne. Estreats Rolls held at TNA hold information on fines imposed on Catholics following the alleged plot. The Estreats Rolls contain valuable genealogical information on those accused of recusancy in the local courts. They will include the recusant's name, parish, rank or occupation and the fine levied. http://hutchinsonfamilyhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/hutchinson-family-were-catholic.html 1689 The Bill of Rights excluded Catholics from the royal succession. New oaths of supremacy and allegiance were passed and measures were introduced to restrict the freedom of movement of Catholics. The Toleration Act of 1689 eased some restrictions, but the specific acts under the Clarendon Code were not repealed until the 19th century. 1692 Following the double rate of taxation Catholics were forced to pay in 1625, Catholics were obliged to pay double land tax. Catholics and other nonconformist entries should be recognisable amongst the land tax records as they paid double the rate of others. 1699 Recusants were barred from purchasing or inheriting land and any Catholics found practicing their religion could be jailed for life. 1702 The Security of Succession Act. The Act introduced an oath whereby all officials had to deny the right of the son of the exiled James II to succeed to the throne. Some returns of Catholics taking oaths are held by TNA as well as certificates of those who refused to take the oath. 1714 Security of the Sovereign Act. TNA holds certificates of those who refused to take the oath. 1715 Catholics were blamed collectively for the Jacobite rebellion. As a result, everyone over the age of 18 was compelled to swear an Oath of Allegiance. Lists of those who refused to take the oath are normally available at county record offices. 1716 Catholics were required to enrol documents such as wills and conveyances that involved the transfer of property and details can be found in close rolls held by TNA. 1723 Following the Jacobite rebellion of 1715, Catholics refusing to take the oaths of loyalty were required to register their names and estates at quarter sessions or face the seizure of their property. The returns describe the estates in detail, giving precise locations and dimensions of lands. The Forfeited Estates Commission was responsible for overseeing the seizure of the estates and details can be found in the close rolls held at TNA. Resucant Thomas Throckmorton's Tomb

Mea Culpa, Nicholas Owen

I missed an important feast day last week as it fell on a Sunday.

St. Nicholas Owen is one of my personal patrons. He is the famous priest-hole maker of the English persecution of priests and he himself was horribly tortured to death.

"Staircase with a Priest Hole In Havrington Hall-Worcestershire-UK-1" by Quodvultdeus - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

I have chosen him as one of my many favorites for several reasons.

1. He is an English martyr.
2. He is a Jesuit
3. He was practical and used his talents for good.
4. He gave himself up to save trying to save Father Garnet.
5. He is not well-known.

I hope he forgives my oversight and intercedes for me, as I am in a bit of a "hiding place" myself.

St. Nicholas Owen, pray for me, pray for us.

Moving Towards My 10,000 Post

I have been thinking about what to highlight for this milestone, which will be the next post.

For some reason, writing about the way the sunlight comes into windows in England came to my mind. The sun has a particular pale but warm glow in that part of the world. I miss this variety of sunlight.

Sunlight and mist sometimes come together in an almost mystical manner in England. The mist does not seem to be sinister, or full of disease, but gentle, like the wing of an angel upon the earth.

One cannot express moments of beauty which one can remember as if these happened yesterday.

A walk in the Dorset countryside on a sunny day with husband and little son of three years of age, cowslips and small daisies peeking through the grass near the ancient pathway; or another walk the day after Christmas, Boxing Day, with the same pair and an old friend, when the frost lay on the green grass like miniature diamonds, and a cold mist graced the land, playing hide and seek with the Dorset hills,when suddenly, a red English phone box formed out of the mist--so I phoned my parents for Christmas,as we were too poor to have a phone; or a drive through Dartmoor with adult son and an old American friend, exclaiming joy at charming hobbit houses low in the vales, and watching the sun fill these valleys like liquid gold being poured out into a folded cloth of varied greens; or the lone, rugged mile-marker, found suddenly, as we stopped to look at the gorse bushes lining the worn path; another walk in Hampshire, with the linnets singing in the hedges, while the man in the family swung a wooden stick against the weeds, like another Charles Musgrove with his cane, just for the fun of it.

Sunlight in England seems soft, like a mother's kiss at night in the summer, when one as a child had to go to bed in the twilight, not the dark; or like the first kiss a mother gives her newborn, a gentle kiss full of awe, wonder, and thankfulness.

The sunlight of England reminds me of many things, but I wonder if I shall ever see this light again....I do not allow myself to think of my beloved country often, as such thoughts break my heart.

Such are my wanderings on post 9,999.

Happy Feast of The Annunciation

I like to celebrate by reading my two favorite poems on the Annunciation. Both are by John Donne. And, while I am thinking of John Donne, I add his great poem on Good Friday.

Upon the Annunciation and 

Passion Falling upon One Day. 

1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today

My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.

She sees Him man, so like God made in this,

That of them both a circle emblem is,

Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day

Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;

She sees Him nothing twice at once, who’s all;

She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall,

Her Maker put to making, and the head

Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;

She sees at once the virgin mother stay

Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;

Sad and rejoiced she’s seen at once, and seen

At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;

At once a Son is promised her, and gone;

Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;

Not fully a mother, she’s in orbity,

At once receiver and the legacy;

All this, and all between, this day hath shown,

The abridgement of Christ’s story, which makes one

(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)

Of the Angels’ Ave and Consummatum est.

How well the Church, God’s court of faculties,

Deals in some times and seldom joining these!

As by the self-fixed Pole we never do

Direct our course, but the next star thereto,

Which shows where the other is and which we say

(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,

So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know

And stand firm, if we by her motion go;

His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth

Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.

This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown

Death and conception in mankind is one:

Or ‘twas in Him the same humility

That He would be a man and leave to be:

Or as creation He had made, as God,

With the last judgment but one period,

His imitating Spouse would join in one

Manhood’s extremes: He shall come, He is gone:

Or as though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,

Would busy a life, she all this day affords;

This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay, 

And in my life retail it every day.

Annunciation

Salvation to all that will is nigh;

That All, which always is all everywhere,

Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,

Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,

Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie

In prison, in thy womb; and though He there

Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,

Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.

Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in His mind, who is thy Son and Brother;

Whom thou conceivst, conceived; yea thou art now

Thy Maker's maker, and thy Father's mother;

Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.

Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this,

The intelligence that moves, devotion is,

And as the other Spheares, by being growne

Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne,

And being by others hurried every day,

Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey:

Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit

For their first mover, and are whirld by it.

Hence is't, that I am carryed towards the West

This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East.

There I should see a Sunne, by rising set,

And by that setting endlesse day beget;

But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall,

Sinne had eternally benighted all.

Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see

That spectacle of too much weight for mee.

Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;

What a death were it then to see God dye?

It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke,

It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke.

Could I behold those hands which span the Poles,

And tune all spheares at once peirc'd with those holes?

Could I behold that endlesse height which is

Zenith to us, and our Antipodes,

Humbled below us? or that blood which is

The seat of all our Soules, if not of his,

Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne

By God, for his apparell, rag'd, and torne?

If on these things I durst not looke, durst I

Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye,

Who was Gods partner here, and furnish'd thus

Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom'd us?

Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye,

They'are present yet unto my memory,

For that looks towards them; and thou look'st towards mee,

O Saviour, as thou hang'st upon the tree;

I turne my backe to thee, but to receive

Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave.

O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee,

Burne off my rusts, and my deformity,

Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace,

That thou may'st know mee, and I'll turne my face.

(Update: someone asked on another blog about Mary being seen at the spinning wheel sometimes when the Annunciation occurred. Here is my comment on that blog.)

As to Mary spinning, three symbolisms I know of, from history, literature, and meditation…the first is that she is a spinster, which originally did not mean an old unmarried woman, but any unmarried woman and yet, one of marriagable age. So that symbolism is connected to Mary’s ever-virginity. This type of woman would be of a certain class, as well, not a peasant, but a skilled worker. Spinning is a symbol of good households, and, therefore, stability. Spinning women were a good symbol, as spinsters, not bad-a pure person with skill from a good family.

The second would be that she is the mother of Christ, who is of the Tribe of Judah, a descendant of David, on the “distaff” side. Jewish custom is still to take the ancestry from the mother, as one always knows who the mother is, and in this case, Mary as the Mother of God, is the primary source of His identity, not Joseph. The distaff, which Mary would have had, not a spinning wheel, which came much later, indicates this Woman’s role of power in the household of God–the Theotokos, the most powerful, yet humble woman in the world.

The last is that Mary is the New Fate, the Woman in charge of our destiny, like the Fates in Greek mythology and other mythologies, who wove history and personal destinies. She weaves mystically the new life of all the saints by her humility, example and intercession. Mary has woven the destiny of all mankind by saying “yes” to God, thus changing history forever.

I use to teach art appreciation and history of art, btw, as well as intro to art when I taught Humanities a long time ago.