The Papa Stronsay Calendar for 2020 can now be purchased from our website HERE.
As always, our Calendar is jam-packed full of all kinds of Liturgical, religious and secular information, that will leave you wondering how you ever managed without it!
It features a photo from the life of our Congregation for each month.
Each month our calendar gives you the Liturgical feast and colour, the four major phases of the moon, the liturgical zodiac, the traditional days of abstinence, the major astronomical occurrences, national public holidays for eight English-speaking countries, as well as many other interesting treats that help you live your day-to-day life as a Catholic, and participate in the life of our Religious Congregation.
The video below shows our 2016 calendar and gives a good idea of what you can expect from this years calendar
Click below to order your 2020 Papa Stronsay Calendar!
The Papa Stronsay Calendar for 2019 is now available for purchase from our website here.
The Papa Stronsay Calendar enables you to easily and fruitfully follow the Church's traditional liturgical cycle. Possibly the best Traditional Catholic wall calendar on the market, it gives you each day's feast, class and liturgical colour, the lunar calendar, traditional days of abstinence, traditional feasts which are not on the universal calendar, national public holidays for six English-speaking countries, major astronomical events, and so much more, including a whole array of beautiful images which truly make this calendar a feast for the eyes!
The Papa Stronsay wall calendar for 2018 is finally here, and can be purchased below!
For those of you who may not have had the pleasure of owning a Papa Stronsay calendar in the past, it is probably the best Extraordinary Form liturgical wall-calendar available, giving you not only the day's liturgical feast and commemorations, but also the liturgical colour of the day, public holidays for five countries, astronomical information, many other liturgical events and historical information not included in the general calendar of the Church, and so much more.
The Calendar contains images of our life throughout the year.
Each month is packed full of liturgical and devotional information.
This video from 2016 gives a good idea of the kind of thing you can expect from your 2018 Papa Stronsay Calendar!
Make sure you don't miss out on future Papa Stronsay Calendars by subscribing to the Calendar mailing list below:
Sign up and we'll tell you when a new calendar is available!
Purchase your Papa Stronsay Calendar now! Simply enter the quantity below to be taken to the Papa Stronsay shop:
The Calendar is with the printer now, and should be ready to ship within the next two weeks. We will have them to you as soon as possible.
Due to unfortunate circumstances, we have been obliged to increase the cost of the Papa Stronsay Calendar this year, but hope to get it back down again next year. Even with this increase, we have not covered the cost of printing. If you are able, please consider making a donation to help with these substantial costs. Thank you!
This post was intended for the feast of Corpus Christi, but Divine Providence had other designs!
Our Lord gave us wonderful weather for His feast, even though it had not been forecast to be so, so we took full advantage of it to take Him in procession to view the Monastery.
In 2014 some of the brethren visited the Abbey of Thoronet, in France. It is an old Cistercian Abbey, founded in 1176. The Abbey was closed during the French Revolution and is now a museum. The chapel has the most amazing acoustic — an echo of 9 seconds!
This is the Alleluia from the Mass of Corpus Christi.
This is the Victimae Paschali Laudes, the sequence sung during Easter.
Life on a small island can often be very interesting. For example: Who expects that stepping outside their front door, they would find a seal sitting on their doorstep? Well here on Papa Stronsay, that's exactly what happened. Leaving my cell in the middle of the morning, I was confronted with a fairly large adolescent seal on the pathway which forms the small street between our monastic cells, called the Via Paparum!
The question was how to move it? Seals can be quite aggressive when cornered and have the nickname "sea dogs". This one was not interested in going back to its home, and we certainly couldn't have it staying too long in the Monastery!
With some of the brethren, a plan was formulated.
We put a blanket over the seal — which as you can see, it was not keen on — to stop it from being able to bite us. It had a mouth full of very small, very sharp teeth.
Then, we took an old canvas mail sack which was cut down one side, and placed it over the seal, with its snout into the undamaged corner of the sack.
With some difficulty, the seal was put onto a sheep hurdle and transported back to the sea.
It was a great adventure! For a light-hearted look at our experience, do watch the video below:
Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria has given an interview to LifeSite News in which he proclaims in a wonderfully simple and clear manner, the Church's teaching on divorce and re-marriage, mortal and venial sin and the conscience, Divine law vs Church law, the Sacrament of Confession etc. We pray God that He will inspire more of the Princes of the Church to stand up and publicly proclaim Her perennial teaching.
Today marks the longest day in the year. Here as I write, it is wet and foggy, but if the skies were clear one could watch the sun make its slow descent through the evening, and finally hide itself below the horizon at about 10:26pm.
Midsummer's night sunset 2012 on Papa Stronsay (more photos here)
By the time midnight came around, one could still read a book outside without too much difficulty.
Midsummer's night midnight 2012 on Papa Stronsay (more photos here)
The winter brings with it the excitement of storms and rough seas! If you missed it we took some great footage of a winter storm back in 2013:
But wouldn't it be interesting and exciting to be able to view these events yourselves, live as they happen, wherever you are in the world?
Today we have begun to stream Stronsay Pier View over the internet. It works much like the many other live stream cameras which can be found online, allowing you to view the Stronsay pier in almost-real-time.
This idea was first conceived as a tool for the inhabitants of Stronsay. It allows us to easily see what the weather and sea condition is at the harbour or whether-or-not the ferry is on time.
I have just started the stream, which can be viewed on this post, on the sidebar of our blog, and eventually on our website too. We are currently using Ustream.tv to stream the video, so you can also view it directly on our Ustream channel here.
Last Saturday, 24th May, the Latin Mass Society (LMS) held their conference in London. The theme of the conference was "The Traditional Mass and Evangelisation", and included such speakers as Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Very Rev Fr Michael Mary, F.SS.R. Thanks to the LMS chairman, Dr Joseph Shaw, and to Mr Martin Gardener for the use of their photos.
SCROLL DOWN TO HEAR FR MICHAEL MARY'S CONFERENCE IN FULL
Arriving in London early on Saturday morning meant that Father could celebrate Holy Mass in the Lady Chapel of St James's, Spanish Place before the conference. (Photo: Dr Joseph Shaw)
Bishop Athanasius Schneider delivering his address at the LMS conference in London. (Photo: Mr Martin Gardener)
Fr Michael Mary spoke on the need to pass on the Catholic traditions to the next generation.
Father spoke not only of liturgical tradition, but also traditional devotion and doctrine, especially of the eternal truths: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.
Listen To Fr Michael Mary's conference right here on our blog!
5th December 2013 saw an impressive storm hit large parts of the UK. Here is how it looked on Stronsay, the island next door to Papa Stronsay. Gusts were estimated at up to 80 mph, causing flooding in the village of Whitehall.
One of my happiest mornings was spent in 2008 in St Cecilia in Trastevere, built upon the remains of the house of St Cecilia. Time spent in the crypt of this Roman church is truly an extraordinary experience, as it is left almost as the saint would have known it, the large grain pits near which she was imprisoned, the shrine even to Minerva set there by her pagan relatives. Most wonderful was to be favoured with the key to the gated, almost ciborium like, golden chapel under the high altar where one can see the sarcophagi of the Saint, with that of her chaste husband St Valerian, through a stone lattice. I had read the wonderful account of the finding in the 1500s of her incorrupt relics, still stretched downwards as she had fallen, the blood still fresh in the wounds on her neck, and this more than a thousand years after her death. As nobody dared to touch them in this wonderful state, to this day we have no idea of what her face looked like and that is why the famous statues of her, carved by one who had seen the miracle, never show her face directly, she is always stretched downwards. There, close to her shrine, all of this came alive in my mind.
The famous phrase associated with the holy martyr we celebrate today is "singing to God in her heart", it is what holy tradition tells us she did in the direst moment of her life, and it is considered in some way why she is the patroness of musicians. I know this is a little different, and I know the words to this song, which first appeared in 1868 of unknown origin, have been somewhat de-Christianised in this more modern version, but none-the-less they fit St Cecilia very well and raise one’s heart and mind to remember a holy and innocent one, who will surely protect us in our direst needs if we call upon her intercession, singing in our own hearts.
Br Nicodemus Mary, F.SS.R.
"My life goes on in endless song, above earth's lamentations, I hear the real, though far-off hymn, that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing, it sounds an echo in my soul... how can I keep from singing?
"While though the tempest loudly roars, I hear the Truth, It liveth. And though the darkness 'round me close, songs in the night it giveth. No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that Rock I'm clinging. Since Love is Lord of Heaven and earth... how can I keep from singing?
"When tyrants tremble in their fear and hear their death knell ringing; when friends rejoice both far and near... how can I keep from singing? In prison cell and dungeon vile our thoughts to them are winging; when friends by shame are undefiled... how can I keep from singing?"
The choir at Maternal Heart of Mary church are really rather good. Here is an example of them singing the Corsican version of the Tantum Ergo sung during Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Today is the feast of St Thecla, the first woman martyr
called "apostle and protomartyr among women".
Just a few hundred miles away from some of us,
her holy tomb has become a war-zone
over the past three weeks.
While it is difficult to ascertain exactly who is fighting who,
who is conspiring against who,
and who wants what,
what is clear is that one of the most
ancient Christian holy places is being menaced.
It seems now to have been taken back from the rebel forces
and peace seems to have returned.
The sacred place was guarded during these past weeks
by a very tenacious group of Orthodox nuns,
and their Abbess Pelagia,
obviously a "mulier fortis" even in the face of Al-Quaeda!
The nuns refused to leave the monastery.
The following images and film clips, often of not very good quality,
recommend at least to your prayers
our suffering brothers and sisters in Syria,
by giving you a flavour of what has been life for those
living in Ma'loula in the shadow of
St Thecla's tomb, during September. Various nationalistic and political opinions or prejudices are expressed which are not the intention or part of this post, and simply form part of the background to these events.
Remember them at your Masses today!
Tourists before the tomb of St Thecla in more peaceful days.
The Holy Martyr St Thecla, a young noble maiden of Konya,
heard St Paul's discourse on virginity and became his disciple,
Her mother and fiancé Thamyris, feared St Paul's injunction
that "one must fear only one God and live in chastity"
and their fear ended in an attempt to burn the saint at the stake
from which she was miraculously saved by the onset of a storm.
She travelled with St Paul to Antioch of Pisidia.
There a nobleman named Alexander desired Thecla
and attempted to take her by force.
She fought him off, assaulting him in the process,
and was put on trial for assaulting a nobleman.
She was sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts,
but was again saved by a series of miracles when the lions protected her.
St Thecla's Monastery, Ma'loula.
In Ma'loula, where her relics repose, tradition says that while being pursued by soldiers of her father who wished to capture her because of her Christian faith, the saint came upon a mountain, and after praying, the mountain split open and let her escape through. - the name of the village comes from the Aramaic word meaning 'entrance'. It is known as one of three places where Western Aramaic is still spoken.
The village is also the site of the Greek Catholic Monastery of St Sarkis, one of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria. It was built on the site of a pagan temple, and has elements which go back to the fifth to sixth century Byzantine period. Now for an insight into September, 2013.
The BBC reports the general situation during the occupation of Ma'loula.
Proclaiming the occupation, the insurgents in the convent confronted by the nuns.
All Arabic but the atmosphere gives a sense of the crisis.
Russia Today correspondent reports.
Footage of Syrian Catholic Prioress Mother Agnes-Mariam.
Greek Catholic refugees arriving in Damascus.
Greek Catholic funeral of victims in Ma'loula.
Catholic Patriarch Gregorios Laham officiates.
Govenment forces retake the monastery, Abbess Pelagia speaking - unfortunately no subtitles.
As many of you surely know, this Sunday is Divine Mercy Sunday. The promises made to St Faustina concerning this devotion are truly amazing.
The Graces available on this day are simply stupendous; it’s like a plenary indulgence, without the requirement of complete detachment from all sin. This opportunity given to us by Christ Himself should not be missed.
Listen to this in order to prepare yourself and to take full advantage of what our Good Lord offers to you:
I thought that perhaps some of our readers might like to hear this recording of our singing here at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary. This rendition of Adoramus Te Christe, by G. P. da Palestrina, was sung during Mass this Palm Sunday, 24th March.
Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi, quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.
We adore Thee, O Christ, And we bless Thee, Who by Thy Holy Cross hath redeemed the world.
The English-speaking seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP).
I found this video very touching. In a world where so much of what we see and hear is violence and immoral, anti-religious behaviour, it is so very refreshing to see something like this - genuine charity from one person to another. It is a wonderful feeling to help someone out, especially when they are in great need:
Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.Matt 25:37-40
When we posted the clip that Cardinal Turkson had played to the Synod of Bishops
we received some critical comments which we did not publish.
I invite you to read this article carefully and to
check the sources that are linked to this article
(by clicking on the underlined words).
It is not possible to be indifferent to the sufferings of
these Christians of Pakistan.
Not all are Catholic.
All are Christian and persecuted.
The Authorities cited include the
Information Service of the Pontifical Mission Socities "FIDES"
and the
Vatican News Agency.
The West sighed in relief when Rimsha Masih, the 14-year-old Christian girl arrested in Pakistan on August 16 for allegedly burning pages of the Quran, was finally released. Yet the West remains clueless concerning the graphic abuses--including rape and murder--Christian children in Pakistan routinely suffer, simply for being Christian. Consider two stories alone, both of which occurred at the same time Rimsha's blasphemy ordeal was making headlines around the world.
Mugadas Kainat, RIP 14 August, 2012
On August 14, another Christian girl, 12-year-old Muqadas Kainat (which means "Holy Universe") was ambushed in a field near her home in Sahawil by five Muslim men who "gang raped and murdered" her. At the time, her father was at a hospital visiting her sick mother. He and other family members began a frantic search, until a tip led them to the field where his daughter's body lay. The postmortem revealed that she had been "gang raped and later strangled to death by five men." Police, as usual, did not arrest anyone. As a Salem News report puts it, "Complicating matters is the fact that several Christian girls in this remote area have been raped and forced to both marry into the Muslim community and abandon their own religion, human rights groups report. … [T]here is a history in this part of Pakistan according to the Christian community, of local authorities failing to investigate cases of rape or other violence against Christians, often for fear of influential Muslims or militants."
Similarly, on August 20, an 11-year-old Christian boy, Samuel Yaqoob, went to the markets of Faisalabad to buy food for his family, never to return. According to Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, "After extensive searching his body was found near a drain in the Christian colony, bearing marks of horrific torture, with the murder weapon nearby. His nose, lips and belly had been sliced off, and his family could hardly recognize him because the body was so badly burnt. Some 23 wounds by a sharp weapon have been identified in the autopsy. When sending his body for an autopsy, police raised the possibility of sodomy. Parts of Pakistani culture have a strong homosexual pederast culture, and Christian and other minority boys are especially susceptible to rape and abuse because of the powerlessness of their community and their despised status. In one case fairly recently, a Christian boy was kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed by a police officer, his body similarly being dumped in a drain."
These were just some of the stories concerning the sexual abuse and murder of Pakistan's Christian children that occurred last August--even as the world stood in awe at the Rimsha Masih blasphemy case. Here are ten more anecdotes, chosen at random from the many former documented cases:
2. Gulfam, another 9-year-old Christian girl, was raped by a Muslim man. Though not killed, she was left "in shock and in the throes of a physical and psychological trauma." During her ordeal, her rapist told her "not to worry because he had done the same service to other young Christian girls" (Dec. 2010).
4. Kidnapped last Christmas Eve, a 12-year-old Christian girl known as "Anna," was gang raped for eight months, forcibly converted and then "married" to her Muslim attacker. After she escaped, instead of seeing justice done, “the Christian family is in hiding from the rapists and the police" (Oct, 2011).
5. After gang-raping a 13-year-old Christian girl, a band of Muslims came to her house when all male members were away working and "mercilessly" beat her pregnant aunt causing her to lose female twins to miscarriage: “They murdered our children, they raped our daughter. We have nothing left with us,” lamented an older family member. The police went on to accuse the 13-year-old raped girl of "committing adultery with three men" (June 2012).
6. A Muslim man murdered a teenage Christian girl, Amariah, during an attempted rape: he had “grabbed the girl and, under the threat of a gun, tried to drag her away. The young woman resisted, trying to escape the clutches of her attacker, when the man opened fire and killed her instantly, and later tried to conceal the corpse" (Dec. 2011).
Mehek
7. Muslims abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl, Mehek, at gunpoint in broad daylight from her parents' house. One of her abductors declared he would "purify her" by making her "Muslim and my mistress" (Aug. 2011).
8. Shazia, a 12-year-old Christian girl, was enslaved, raped, and murdered by Chaudhry Naeem, a rich Muslim lawyer, who was acquitted. His wife and son had participated in abusing the child (Nov. 2010).
9. Nadia, a Christian girl who was abducted in 2001 when she was 15-years-old and forced to marry a Muslim, only recently returned to her Catholic family (Jan. 2012).
10. A powerful Muslim businessman had two Christian sisters kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and "married" to him (May 2011).
In every one of these cases, Pakistani police either failed to act or sided with the rapists and murderers.
The above anecdotes represent a mere sampling of the documented atrocities committed against the children of Pakistan's Christians, who amount for a miniscule 1.5% of the nation's population. Then there are the stories that never make it to any media--stories of silent abuse that only the nameless, faceless victims know.
"2 year old toddler"
For example, it took five years for the story of a 2-year-old toddler who was savagely raped because her Christian father refused to convert to Islam to surface. After undergoing five surgeries, her anatomy remains disfigured and she suffers from several permanent complications. Her family lives in fear and hiding.
How many Christian children in Pakistan are being mauled in silence, with their stories never surfacing?
And what animates this savagery? Discussing the aforementioned rape of 9-year-old Gulfam, local sources in Pakistan put it well: "It is shameful. Such incidents occur frequently. Christian girls are considered goods to be damaged at leisure. Abusing them is a right. According to the [Muslim] community’s mentality it is not even a crime. Muslims regard them as spoils of war."
Indeed, here is how the late Majid Khadduri, "internationally recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law and jurisprudence," explained the idea of human "spoils" in his War and Peace in the Law of Islam:
The term spoil (ghanima) is applied specifically to property acquired by force from non-Muslims. It includes, however, not only property (movable and immovable) but also persons, whether in the capacity of asra (prisoners of war) or sabi (women and children). … If the slave were a woman, the master was permitted to have sexual connection with her as a concubine.
From here, one can begin to understand the rabid fanaticism that possessed Pakistan's Muslims concerning the Rifsha blasphemy case, which resulted in mass riots, Muslim threats to take the law in their own hands, and the dislocation of Christians, some of whom have been forced to live and worship in the wilderness: If infidel Christians, especially their children, are seen as mere "spoils" to be used and disposed of with impunity, certainly it must be intolerable for Muslims if one of these "sub-humans" dares to desecrate Islam's holy book--the same book that ordains their inhuman status.
And herein is the true significance of the Rifsha Masih case: success is measured not in the fact that this one particular Christian child got away from the savageries of Islamic law and culture, but whether her ordeal will begin to open Western eyes to the terrors Pakistan's Christian children routinely face.
As many of you will know, this summer has been really harsh in the United States, with drought conditions over much of the country. This site can help to give you some idea of the situation: http://www.lawrencevilleweather.com/drought.html
Having just arrived back at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton Nebraska for the start of a new year, I have been able to see first-hand just how dry it has been, and it has been very dry! But today, Our Good Lord sent us a little present!
Saturday 25th August saw the long awaited annual Papa Stronsay bonfire and BBQ. It had been planned for earlier in the year, but due to bad weather it had to be postponed. Thanks be to God, the weather turned out fine on the evening of the 25th! We were glad to welcome a good number of the Stronsay community to Papa Stronsay for the occasion.
Br. Seelos celebrated his 21st birthday on the 22nd August. Therefore he was given the honour of lighting the fire.
Blessing the fire:
Domine Deus, Pater omnipotens, lumen indeficiens, qui es conditur omnium luminum: novum humc ignem sanctifica, et praesta; ut ad te, qui es lumen indeficiens, puris mentibus, post hujus saeculi caliginem, pervenire valeamus. Per Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen.
Lord God, Almighty Father, Maker of all light, and the light that never fails; hallow this new fire, and grant that after the darkness of this world we may come with pure hearts to Thee, our perpetual light; through Christ our Lord.
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins and save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy!
Eternal Maxims - Tuesday
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Maxims of Eternity
or
Meditations for Every Day in the Week.
*Meditation for Tuesday*
*Mortal Sin.*
I.
Consider, O my soul! that having been created to love ...
Rev. Fr Hubert Austen, C.SS.R. (1884 – 1964)
-
Father was born in Hamburg on 16 May, 1884, into a profoundly Catholic
family. It was from them and the priests who formed his soul as a child and
a youn...
The Foundation of Lauterach near Bregenz (Austria)
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* 1904*
“Our foundation,” Reverend Mother Marie-Rose of the Child Jesus wrote to us
on 3rd May 1906, “is under the patronage of Saint Joseph. Of all our
h...
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