Quick Takes Friday: St. Fursey Edition

1.

Happy St. Fursey's Day!   Go to Jen's blog, Conversion Diary, for more Quick Fridays.

St. Fursey was an Irish monastic founder, the brother of Sts. Foillan and Ulan, praised by St. Bede. Fursey was born on the island of Inisguia en Lough Carri, Ire land, as a noble. He founded Rathmat Abbey, now probably Killursa. In 630 Fursey and his friends went to East Anglia, England, where he founded a monastery near Ugremouth on land donated by King Sigebert. In his later years, Fursey went toFrance to build a monastery at Lagny, near Paris, France. He was buried in Picardy. St.Bede and others wrote about Fursey’s intense ecstasies.

2.

I learned this winter that there is good snowman snow -- soft and heavy

And there is good ice sledding snow -- dry and crunchy; preferably after a freezing rain

The jury is still out on snow that is fun to shovel.

3.

For Vitamin T.

The EZBake Oven Scratch Recipes.

4.

Overheard: "I'm surprised no one in my 4 H club knew what Camera Obscura meant in Latin."

It takes a certain, child-like humility to assume that everyone with more birthdays than you knows everything that you do.

5.

Adopt a Catholic Blog! I adopt Waiting For Charlie and Wombs of Life.

6.

Two St. Rose of Lima (Aug 23) quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to
heaven. (CCC 618)

When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at
home, St. Rose of Lima said to her: "When we serve the poor and the sick, we
serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve
Jesus. (CCC 2449)

Quick Takes Friday

1.

Crappy Catholics. We all know of 'em. Probably we're related to quite a few. I know I see one in the mirror more often than I care to admit. On the 4th Sunday of Advent, my town was FREEZING. And yet, there we all were. Shivering and praying. Shivering and praying.

You know God must love Crappy Catholics because he made so many of them. And they must love Him, too, to show up at church in such, ahem, Crappy Weather.


2.



It happens. Sometimes the homily is lacking a little something at Mass. With all charity, let me direct you to Fr. Tom Cook. His Sunday homilies in October are always dedicated to Pro-Life topics, and this Advent, he's been meditating on the readings of St. Paul that we've been hearing at Mass.


3.



Chesterton's Christmas Poem (excerpt)

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;

More of Chesterton's Christmas Meditations:

4.

Christmas Everywhere by Phillips Brooks

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white,
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright.
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,
Christmas where old men are patient and gray,
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight,
Broods o're brave men in the thick of the fight;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.

5.

Yes, I agree with Fr. Dwight that we should all learn Chant, because it is "home-grown" worship. However, in English, singing the Psalms to the beat of that "old time Protestant religion" can't be beat. You can open up your King James Bible and look at the lyrics to many of the songs set to a Psalm, and it is amazing how well they match up. That isn't often the case with many of the Psalm settings you might hear at Mass.

Now, our crew is learning some of the most famous Chant prayers -- Pater Noster, Salve Regina and others -- but that is because they know the words in English already, and that makes it a lot easier to do vocabulary work with the Chants.

In our morning prayer routine, the "imports" are the milquetoast, and the "homegrowns" are the meat.



6.

Did you know that Interstate Highway 80 is very windy? We call it the Wy-aska-wa Wind, after the three contiguous states that blow the hardest.

7.

Happy New Year!

See Jen for more Quick Takes!