The Grail?

http://news.yahoo.com/crowds-swamp-church-spain-holy-grail-claim-142642943.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/historians-holy-grail-goblet-spanish-museum-article-1.1740633

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/03/31/article-2593336-1CB652EC00000578-327_634x856.jpg

A reminder to home schoolers

http://www.hslda.org/

I belong to this group most of the years I was home schooling. I highly suggest joining.

April Post from The Guild Blog

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-is-heaven.html

March Guild Posts from STM

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/03/egos-in-church.html

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-glue-of-apathy-and-ugly-word-zeal.html

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/03/are-you-in-bubble.html

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/03/corruption-in-social-networks.html

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-long-hard-winter.html

Also, check out the what is hell, what is purgatory series......in February.

The Exterior Reveals The Interior Part Two

People, just going to the traditional Latin Mass weekly is not a guarantee of either final perseverance or the growth in holiness.

I see more and more a dangerous ideal creeping into some traditional groupings with which I am familiar.

Plain and simple-the problem is legalism.

Following the rules, going to the Mass of the Ages, saying all the great pre-Vatican II prayers cannot equal the daily metanoia, the daily repentance and the seeking out of purification necessary for union with God.

Recently, I have had to reflect on some of the serious signs of a lack of the interior life among some trads I know. I had to consult a priest in the past about the problem of knowing people in serious sin going weekly and even daily to the TLM while sinning publicly.

I could not understand how some I knew who were into the occult, letting their children live extremely secular and even compromised lives while living at home, and even some people caught up in what only could be called mafia-life business deals, common knowledge in the community, and going to the TLM without repentance.

This good FSSP priest explained to me that one can receive the sacraments and not receive grace. That the TLM makes many people feel like they are on the right track and this can lead to self-deception. This priest explained to me the evil of legalism.

This good priest noted that sometimes those in the deepest sinful patterns think they are saved merely by going to the TLM. He told me some people live in self-deceit.

Working out one's salvation in fear and trembling means hard work on a day to day basis.

What I cannot understand is why the men in the TLM communities do not reach out and bring their brothers in sin back to conversion and repentance. Why do men avoid confrontation?

Many women in one Traditional Mass group were terrified of a violent man, who exhibited this violence during the week in a work situation in which some of the women were employed. And, yet, none of the men in the community addressed this violence. Even after some women bravely brought this up to members of the TLM community, nothing was done in that community.

Many of the women left the TLM rather than deal with the serious denial of reality.

Some of the women left the workplace where this man also worked, and yet, no man in the TLM community protected these women. Moses defended the Daughters of Jethro, yet these single women had no champions.

In another case, some TLMers saw that a man was involved in something occultic. Yet, no one said anything. Some men were in denial about the situation.

In yet a third case, some financially comfortable families were sending their children to state schools and not teaching religion in the home. No one said that this was a breaking of the baptismal promises of those parents, and the promises made at marriage to raise the children Catholic.

Going to Mass on Sunday was not a substitute for daily virtue training.



In all of these cases, I was either one of the few ladies to bring things up to the leaders, or the only one to do so. I tried to protect the single women. I tried to point out the occult dangers. I tried to show that Catholic education was a duty, not an option, for parents.

Why are men so complacent and accepting of serious imperfections?

Why? Where is the sense of community? Where is the sense of brotherly correction?

Just going to Mass is not enough. In fact, going to the TLM may cause some people to hide in sin.

Think about this.

The Mass is the culmination of one's worship, and should be a reflection of the interior life, not a substitute for the interior life.

We can all become merely "whitewashed sepulchers".

Matthew 23:27-28

Douay-Rheims 

27 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones, and of all filthiness.

28 So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

The TLM should change one forever. The TLM should change families. I have seen this happen. I have seen large families becoming holy because the father incorporated the grace of the TLM and brought that grace home.

Daily life began to reflect the deep mysteries of the Mass of the Ages.

I have seen five vocations come out of one TLM community, in a city where there had been no vocations for forty years.

Those young men incorporated the grace of the TLM. They changed. They absorbed the graces of the most perfect type of worship known to humans.

This should be happening. 

I speak of the "women at the well". In ancient times, women would gather at wells to discuss family problems and to get advice from the elderly wise women. For centuries, the elders led the young ones to wisdom and grace. The younger women trusted those who were older and wiser. 

If this is not happening in a TLM community, that community is bogged down by legalism. Sharing leads to growth, and the younger women should have humility to seek out the old saints. I have met some of these older saintly women who have so much to offer the young ones. But, the younger ones are closed, caught up in secularism, missing the opportunity to sit at the feet of those in the Illuminative State. I know one women who is ignored by the community and every time I speak with her, I am drawn closer to God and His Mother. What a gift she is.

But, too many of the younger ones cannot see beyond their own egos. They have a little bit of knowledge and have grown proud.

I have seen this in two communities, and one has shrunken to one-fourth of its original size.

Legalism kills the soul and deadens the community.

Only repentance and the search for humility can create a vibrant community wherein the exterior reflects the interior.

Doctors of the Church Series

Please follow the tags to read on the two doctors of the Church, one towards the end of this week and one in the past few days. I have not had enough time to re-post these.

Too much time in doctor's offices......

The Exterior Reveals The Interior Life Part One

The traditional communities are much weaker than seven years ago. I have several observations as to why. Part of the problem is that the older TLM communities included many of us pre-Vatican II types, who remember what the EF was actually like and could lead the congregations in proper lay responses and deportment.

Part of the problem, therefore, is the rupture of continuity taking its toll on the younger members who simply have no record, no memory and no way of knowing how to think or act as a Catholic.

The second huge problem has been the number of converts who either have been trained properly, or brought in by priests who verge on being on the margins of the Church. This leaves a small proportion of trads with idiosyncratic ideas and habits.

A third part of the problem is the lack of appropriateness in the lives of the younger Gen Xers. On Sunday, at a TLM, people applauded in the Church for a reason some saw as appropriate. Now, we have guidelines from Rome concerning the need for absolutely no applause in the Church before, during or after Mass.

I was glad I was not at this particular Mass, as I would have had words with those who applauded.

A fourth problem is the unwillingness to learn proper lay deportment, because society no longer requires certain rules of deportment. Unless people travel and see the wide-world of the Latin Mass, people will not see the real need for behavioral changes in the Mass.

I am not referring to modesty of dress or mantillas, but a sense of decorum.

Can this be changed, I wonder?

Deportment comes from a sense of the virtues of religion, piety and temperance. We are given these virtues in baptism and these virtues get a boost of spiritual energy and insight in confirmation.

So, what is needed may be simply the realization that religion, piety and temperance change our behavior, if one cooperates with grace.

to be continued...

Prayers, please, again

I have to see a specialist on Wednesday for one eye. Please pray I do not need surgery. That is a real possibility.  I do not do well in surgeries for two reasons. TMI.

I suggest praying to Father John Hardon to have my eye heal up miraculously.

Thanks

STM

Doctor Day and Limited Access

I shall not be online today. Pray for my appointments, please. Ta muchly.

Prayers Today for A Special Group

Join me in prayer today for three couples who I know who have been unable to conceive.

God bless them with children.

Amen.

Munds, Part Three

Dowry money in the Hebrew is called מֹהַר, or mohar. This is the money paid to the family of the woman, the wedding money. This word is found in many contexts in the Scriptures, such as in Genesis, Esther, Malachi, and the Song of Songs, to mention some.

Another word is similar, the zebed, or זֶבֶד, the wedding money or gift given by the woman to the man.

Now, remember that the name Zebedee comes from this word, zebed, gift. 

John and James were the Sons of Zebedee, the sons of gift. This word is also found in numerous books of the Bible, including some of the above.

Now, the name implies that the man is the gift given back to the husband by the woman, the wife and mother. So, the Sons of Zebedee are the children of the man of the dowry, the endowment or gift.

Nice. And, Zebedee becomes the name Edmund in the Anglo-Saxon.

Every child is a gift. Every child is an endowment and receives in baptism an endowment of grace.

It is the duty of the parent to protect that endowment, and like any investment, make it grow.

Such is virtue training.

Gifts are to be cherished and given back to God.

Have you given your children back to God? Are you training them to be gifts to the world?

A long time ago, I gave my child to God and to Mary. And, I heard God answer me, "I give you England in your son. You will always have England." God knows how much I love England. Why, I do not know.

I just have to get back there to claim my dowry, which is really Mary's Dowry, England. She just wants to share a little bit of England with me. 

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/walsingham-drama-in-three-acts.html

Prayers, please

Complications of eye surgeries. Prayers please. Find out in the next two days if I need more surgery.

STM

On Munds, Part Two of Three

Tacitus in his work on the Germans, writes about munds. In one place, Tacitus writes that a mund is equal to five cows. Here is Iowa, that would amount to 4,000 USD for a prime Black Angus, but up to 100,000 USD for a show cow. Not a bad mund...

,...marriage in Germany is austere, and there is no feature in their morality that deserves higher praise. They are almost unique among barbarians in being satisfied with one wife each. The exceptions, which are exceedingly rare, are of men who receive offers of many wives because of their rank; there is no question of sexual passion. The dowry is brought by husband to wife, not by wife to husband. Parents and kinsmen attend and approve of the gifts, gifts not chosen to please a woman's whim or gaily deck a young bride, but oxen, horse with reins, shield, spear and sword. For such gifts a man gets his wife, and she in her turn brings some present of arms to her husband. In this interchange of gifts they recognize the supreme bond, the holy mysteries, the presiding deities of marriage. A woman must not imagine herself free to neglect the manly virtues or immune from the hazards of war. That is why she is reminded, in the very ceremonies which bless her marriage at its outset, that she is coming to share a man's toils and dangers, that she is to be his partner in all his sufferings and adventures, whether in peace or war. That is the meaning of the team of oxen, of the horse ready for its rider, of the gift of arms. On these terms she must live her life and bear her children. She is receiving something that she must hand over unspoilt and treasured to her children, for her son's wives to receive in their turn and pass on to the grandchildren.

Cows or land seem like good munds to me.

And, the ladies had the right to pass on their munds to their children or grandchildren.

Hmmm, I missed out on something here.  I could have bought a comfortable house in Spain for four Black Angus show cows!

..

On Munds, Part One

The tradition of dowry has changed and in been in flux for centuries. The exchanging of swords became a sign of trust between a past enemy and the new friend. In the Icelandic annals, a new sword became a symbol of this old one of trust. The new sword could have been purchased by the new husband who would give it to his new wife. He could have been returning her father's sword, given to him, or he and she would have exchange swords.

By the time these customs were written down, the original customs had faded.

Why I am writing about this is that this type of thing is called a mund. The mund was a security for the woman, who was given land for her own posterity, so in case the man died, the widow would have something to live on. The mund is found in Beowulf, where it is called a "spear dowry", which would have been a cache of weapons. Weapons had a stable value. One could always sell these off, if needed. Would not a widow keep the weapons and pass these on to her son. The sons inherited stuff from the father, but so did the woman, for her upkeep and security.

The woman would not have to rely on brothers or uncles, which was a good thing. My saint, Etheldreda, had her own land ownership. As one betrothed, she had that security.specifically the male dowry. It's a Scandinavian concept, one made a promise of land, and if one broke the engagement or popped off that becomes the property of the woman betrothed and her family

The betrothal ceremony was extremely important, and legally binding. Christianity became controversial in some cultures, as it changed the emphasis from the engagement to the marriage. But, in England and in Germany, both stayed important.

The mund of the woman was usually money and that of the man, land. See an example, below.

What a great idea. The word mund is found in many Anglo-Saxon names, such as Edmund, Osmund, Garmund, Sigmund and others which include mund.

Mund means guardian, which is the shield for the wife. This is the security for the wife.

Any prefix makes sense with mund. Edmund means goodly or cute guardian. Ed is short from Edel, which means princely, or great. Etheldreda is from the same root, Ed being the diminutive.

Sigmund means victorious guardian, implying mund gotten in war.

Osmund means godly guardian, like the wonderful wizard of....as Os was a pagan god of the Anglo-Saxons.

In the first episode of By the Sword Divided, one sees played out in the series the old Anglo-Saxon idea of mund in the betrothal of Anne Lacey and John Fletcher, wherein, the fathers set the terms: Sir Martin Lacey gives money and Austin Fletcher gives lots of land, ships, and stuff from the New World.

Unless there were invasions, civil war, or pigginess from such monarchs as Henry VIII, who stole many a woman's mund, a woman could expect to have her mund until she died.

(Notes from Edmund. To be continued...)

Happy Mum's Day to All Brit and EU Mums

To all mums in Britain and the EU, have a great day.

Thanks be to God for children.  And, thank you, Mother Mary, for saying "Yes" to God.

Mother's Day comes from the Medieval "Lady's Day" which was the celebration of The Annunciation extended to all mums on the nearest Sunday after March 25th.

It is NOT a Hallmark invention.

Be good to your mums today.

I wish a happy day to the mums I know and love in England, Ireland, the EU. Carole, Jenna, Ursula, Elizabeth, Lynda and many others.

It is an honor to be a mum.

Wow and thanks to Peter for the heads-up

http://www.conservativeinfidel.com/u-s-politics/covered-california-sends-voter-registration-cards-pre-marked-democrat-party/

EWTN Waking Up?

http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/World.php?id=9650

No Cricket for miles and miles and miles

Glad I have cricket on twitter...

Hey, I want one of these...on a little patch of English soil

http://www.leedcabins.com/Photos.html

Good one for the BBC

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26754947

While the American media is silent. Thanks to Spencer for the heads-up on this report.