Monday, March 30, 2009

Memento Mori

If you were now on the point of death, already in your agony and almost breathing your last, and about to appear before the Divine Tribunal, what would you not wish to have done for God? And what would you not give for a little more time to make your salvation more secure. Woe to me, if I did not make use of the light that is now given to me, and amend my life! He hath called against me the time (Lamentations 1:15).
The time which is now granted to me by the mercy of God will be a great torment and a subject of bitter remorse to me at the hour of death, when time shall be for me no more.
O Jesus, Thou didst spend Thy whole life for my salvation, and I have been many years in the world, and yet what have I hitherto done for Thee? Alas! all that I have done gives me only pain and remorse of conscience.
O my God, I will no longer abuse the time and the light Thou affordest me, but which I have hitherto so much abused. I thank Thee for this fresh admonition which may be the last Thou wilt ever give me. But since at present Thou thus enlightenest me, it is a mark that Thou hast not yet abandoned me, and art desirous of showing me mercy. My beloved Saviour, I am sorry above all things for having so often despised Thy graces and neglected Thy calls and inspirations. I promise with Thy help nevermore to offend Thee.

Child of God,
the Lord now gives you time;
be then resolved.
In what way will you spend it?
What do you wait for?
Memento Mori!
Remember Death!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Vale, O valde decora!

The last image to be veiled.
The Mother of God of Perpetual Succour remained unveiled
for Her Novena of Prayers this evening.
After Night Prayers the veil came down
and with all the other sacred images
She will remain enpurpled
and, as it were, mourning
until Resurrection night,
now fourteen days away.
Lent has ended.
Tonight we enter
Passiontide.
Vale o valde decora,
Et pro nobis Christum exora.
Farewell, O most comely!
Prevail upon Christ to pity us.

Vespers

Vespers
Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary
Denton, Nebraska
Coped Assistants at Solemn Vespers
- Carmelite Monks of Wyoming -
Coped Assistants at Solemn Vespers
- Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer -

Ordinations to the Subdiaconate in Nebraska

Photographs of the Ordinations to the Subdiaconate
celebrated for the Fraternity of St. Peter in Nebraska
by
Bishop Perry, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago.
The five seminarian Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer
either assisted or sang in the choir;
two can be seen, one on either side of the aisle in the second pews.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

5 years ago -A Basilica for the Immaculate

In the spirit of “Friend lost never was”
I recall a happy event of five years ago. Five years ago today, I was in France with Fr. Anthony for the Enthronment of the statue of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Basilica that had been built by Fr. Raffali, father and founder of the Oeuvre de l’Etoile (The Work of the Star) near Nimes in France.
How about that frying pan?

It was a quiet occasion but not without its own splendour. For many years Father Raffali had been building a Basilica “for Our Lady.” That in itself is a wonderful project and its completion after many years was worthy of celebration. We had watched the progress of the building wondering if it could be more than its basement where until five years ago, Mass had always been offered.

It was a touching moment when Father carried the beloved statue of the basement to its new place of entronement over the High Altar.
Consecration before the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Those who participated in the ceremony
A majestic and fervent preacher of Her Glories
Fr. Raffali is a priest of the diocese of Nimes. His many years of priesthood have been centered on his small school for boys in a work called ‘l’Oeuvre de l’Etoile’ referring to Our Lady who is given the title ‘Star of the Sea.’ Father is a man of books and since the day is taken up with running every aspect of his school, he spends many hours at night studying and reading (including the Fathers in Greek).
I ask you to please pray for Father Maurice Raffali. He is a convinced ‘hard’ when it comes to all that concerns the crisis in the Church but we know that his great love after God is She who is all powerful in Heaven by Her intercession. Please offer your rosaries for this hard working priest that the Queen of Heaven whom he so willed to honour by building Her a basilica will enlighten his mind and turn him to recognise the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for Him

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The myth of my solitude

Aboard the flight to Africa Pope Benedict was asked:
"Many newspapers speak of the 'solitude' of the Pope.
What is your view on this?
Do you really feel alone?"



Pope Benedict XVI replied:

"To tell the truth
this myth of my solitude makes me laugh.
I do not feel alone at all.
Every day I hold meetings with my closest collaborators, first among them the secretary of State. I see all heads of the dicasteries regularly, each day I receive bishops on their ad limina visits: lately all the visits have been bishops, one after another, from Nigeria and from Argentina. We had two plenary assemblies --one of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the other of the Congregation for Clergy. We had some friendly discussions, we are a network of friends. Besides, my Mass companions from Germany came recently for a day to talk to me."
"Truly, I am surrounded by friends in a marvelous collaboration with bishops, with my collaborators, and with lay people, and I am grateful for this."

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Papa Stronsay Texts

Feast of St. Clement Hofbauer
We are delighted to make known to you our new blogspot called:
"Papa Stronsay Texts
- Redemptorist Necrologies that are too good to be lost."
Reference:
We have linked to this blog on the left hand side under our 'References.'
This site will specialise in reproducing
necrologies or lives of
Redemptorists and Redemptoristines;
not necessarily the ones who will be canonised,
but all the same great people
who have served God
by the gift of their lives.
The record of their lives
serve to inspire us
to likewise give ourselves to God.
These lives have been described as being "too good to be lost!" They are all recorded from old pages, pamphlets or bits of books; images too are in danger of being lost, one is here from a Memento card. Some were machine typed others were handwritten, many have only been published privately; all were in danger of being lost forever. We do not want that to happen.
At this stage there are only three such necrologies to hand. More, and many more we hope, will be added as the Necrologist finds moments of spare time to occupy himself with his labour of love. Little by little the site will grow.
The text on "The Servant of God, Father Pampalon, C.SS.R." was a machine typed translation from French that had been discarded from a monastery library. The translation was poor, but the story had been typed onto bits of note book paper and it had then been sewn together by hand; it was probably a work of poverty and devotion by an admirer of the holy priest. Now the endangered work is in cyberspace and the typed pages are available everywhere thanks to the person who worked on the text for us. The life of Father Villanacci, C.SS.R. has been translated from Latin by a friend. What a wonderful photo! He made himself look very poor to save the poor embarrasment when he visited them. A real saint who was loved by all in Pagani (where the body of St. Alphonsus lies). He had thousands of people at his funeral. The interesting life of Father Van Der Straeten, C.SS.R. has been typed from an old book in French. Perhaps somebody will translate it and send us an English text. For the time being it remains in French.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Letter of Pope Benedict XVI




LETTER
OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS
OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
concerning
the remission of the excommunication
of the four Bishops
consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre

Dear Brothers in the Episcopal Ministry!

The remission of the excommunication of the four Bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without a mandate of the Holy See has for many reasons caused, both within and beyond the Catholic Church, a discussion more heated than any we have seen for a long time. Many Bishops felt perplexed by an event which came about unexpectedly and was difficult to view positively in the light of the issues and tasks facing the Church today. Even though many Bishops and members of the faithful were disposed in principle to take a positive view of the Pope’s concern for reconciliation, the question remained whether such a gesture was fitting in view of the genuinely urgent demands of the life of faith in our time. Some groups, on the other hand, openly accused the Pope of wanting to turn back the clock to before the Council: as a result, an avalanche of protests was unleashed, whose bitterness laid bare wounds deeper than those of the present moment. I therefore feel obliged to offer you, dear Brothers, a word of clarification, which ought to help you understand the concerns which led me and the competent offices of the Holy See to take this step. In this way I hope to contribute to peace in the Church.

An unforeseen mishap for me was the fact that the Williamson case came on top of the remission of the excommunication. The discreet gesture of mercy towards four Bishops ordained validly but not legitimately suddenly appeared as something completely different: as the repudiation of reconciliation between Christians and Jews, and thus as the reversal of what the Council had laid down in this regard to guide the Church’s path. A gesture of reconciliation with an ecclesial group engaged in a process of separation thus turned into its very antithesis: an apparent step backwards with regard to all the steps of reconciliation between Christians and Jews taken since the Council – steps which my own work as a theologian had sought from the beginning to take part in and support. That this overlapping of two opposed processes took place and momentarily upset peace between Christians and Jews, as well as peace within the Church, is something which I can only deeply deplore. I have been told that consulting the information available on the internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on. I have learned the lesson that in the future in the Holy See we will have to pay greater attention to that source of news. I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility. Precisely for this reason I thank all the more our Jewish friends, who quickly helped to clear up the misunderstanding and to restore the atmosphere of friendship and trust which – as in the days of Pope John Paul II – has also existed throughout my pontificate and, thank God, continues to exist.

Another mistake, which I deeply regret, is the fact that the extent and limits of the provision of 21 January 2009 were not clearly and adequately explained at the moment of its publication. The excommunication affects individuals, not institutions. An episcopal ordination lacking a pontifical mandate raises the danger of a schism, since it jeopardizes the unity of the College of Bishops with the Pope. Consequently the Church must react by employing her most severe punishment – excommunication – with the aim of calling those thus punished to repent and to return to unity. Twenty years after the ordinations, this goal has sadly not yet been attained. The remission of the excommunication has the same aim as that of the punishment: namely, to invite the four Bishops once more to return. This gesture was possible once the interested parties had expressed their recognition in principle of the Pope and his authority as Pastor, albeit with some reservations in the area of obedience to his doctrinal authority and to the authority of the Council. Here I return to the distinction between individuals and institutions. The remission of the excommunication was a measure taken in the field of ecclesiastical discipline: the individuals were freed from the burden of conscience constituted by the most serious of ecclesiastical penalties. This disciplinary level needs to be distinguished from the doctrinal level. The fact that the Society of Saint Pius X does not possess a canonical status in the Church is not, in the end, based on disciplinary but on doctrinal reasons. As long as the Society does not have a canonical status in the Church, its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the Church. There needs to be a distinction, then, between the disciplinary level, which deals with individuals as such, and the doctrinal level, at which ministry and institution are involved. In order to make this clear once again: until the doctrinal questions are clarified, the Society has no canonical status in the Church, and its ministers – even though they have been freed of the ecclesiastical penalty – do not legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.

In light of this situation, it is my intention henceforth to join the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" – the body which has been competent since 1988 for those communities and persons who, coming from the Society of Saint Pius X or from similar groups, wish to return to full communion with the Pope – to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This will make it clear that the problems now to be addressed are essentially doctrinal in nature and concern primarily the acceptance of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar magisterium of the Popes. The collegial bodies with which the Congregation studies questions which arise (especially the ordinary Wednesday meeting of Cardinals and the annual or biennial Plenary Session) ensure the involvement of the Prefects of the different Roman Congregations and representatives from the world’s Bishops in the process of decision-making. The Church’s teaching authority cannot be frozen in the year 1962 – this must be quite clear to the Society. But some of those who put themselves forward as great defenders of the Council also need to be reminded that Vatican II embraces the entire doctrinal history of the Church. Anyone who wishes to be obedient to the Council has to accept the faith professed over the centuries, and cannot sever the roots from which the tree draws its life.

I hope, dear Brothers, that this serves to clarify the positive significance and also the limits of the provision of 21 January 2009. But the question still remains: Was this measure needed? Was it really a priority? Aren’t other things perhaps more important? Of course there are more important and urgent matters. I believe that I set forth clearly the priorities of my pontificate in the addresses which I gave at its beginning. Everything that I said then continues unchanged as my plan of action. The first priority for the Successor of Peter was laid down by the Lord in the Upper Room in the clearest of terms: "You… strengthen your brothers" (Lk 22:32). Peter himself formulated this priority anew in his first Letter: "Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you" (1 Pet 3:15). In our days, when in vast areas of the world the faith is in danger of dying out like a flame which no longer has fuel, the overriding priority is to make God present in this world and to show men and women the way to God. Not just any god, but the God who spoke on Sinai; to that God whose face we recognize in a love which presses "to the end" (cf. Jn 13:1) – in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. The real problem at this moment of our history is that God is disappearing from the human horizon, and, with the dimming of the light which comes from God, humanity is losing its bearings, with increasingly evident destructive effects.

Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible: this is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church and of the Successor of Peter at the present time. A logical consequence of this is that we must have at heart the unity of all believers. Their disunity, their disagreement among themselves, calls into question the credibility of their talk of God. Hence the effort to promote a common witness by Christians to their faith – ecumenism – is part of the supreme priority. Added to this is the need for all those who believe in God to join in seeking peace, to attempt to draw closer to one another, and to journey together, even with their differing images of God, towards the source of Light – this is interreligious dialogue. Whoever proclaims that God is Love "to the end" has to bear witness to love: in loving devotion to the suffering, in the rejection of hatred and enmity – this is the social dimension of the Christian faith, of which I spoke in the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est.

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who "has something against you" (cf. Mt 5:23ff.) and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents – to the extent possible – in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things – arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.

Dear Brothers, during the days when I first had the idea of writing this letter, by chance, during a visit to the Roman Seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another." I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses which we occasionally find in Saint Paul. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this "biting and devouring" also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom? And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love? The day I spoke about this at the Major Seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in Rome. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide – even in turbulent times. And so I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to all the many Bishops who have lately offered me touching tokens of trust and affection, and above all assured me of their prayers. My thanks also go to all the faithful who in these days have given me testimony of their constant fidelity to the Successor of Saint Peter. May the Lord protect all of us and guide our steps along the way of peace. This is the prayer that rises up instinctively from my heart at the beginning of this Lent, a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, one which invites all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.
With a special Apostolic Blessing, I remain
Yours in the Lord,

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

From the Vatican, 10 March 2009

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A Great Mistake

If it be a great mistake, as has been already said, to converse mistrustfully with God, to be always coming before Him as a slave, full of fear and confusion, comes before his prince, trembling with dread, it would be a greater to think that conversing with God is but weariness and bitterness. No, it is not so: Her conversation hath no bitterness, nor her company any tediousness. Ask those souls who love him with a true love, and they will tell you that in the sorrows of their life they find no greater, no truer relief, than in a loving converse with God.

Now this does not require that you continually apply your mind to it, so as to forget all your employments and recreations. It only requires of you, without putting these aside, to act towards God as you act on occasion towards those who love you and whom you love.

Your God is ever near you, nay, within you: In Him we live, and move, and be. There is no barrier at the door against any who desire to speak with Him; nay, God delights that you should treat with Him confidently.
Treat with Him of your business,
your plans, your griefs,
your fears,
of all that concerns you.
Above all,
do so with confidence,
with an open heart.
For God is not wont to speak to the soul that speaks not to Him ; forasmuch as, if it be not used to converse with Him, it would little understand His voice when He spoke to it. And this is what the Lord complains of: Our sister is little : what shall we do to our sister in the day when she is to be spoken to? Our sister is but a child in my love ; what shall we do to speak to her if she understand Me not ?
God will have Himself esteemed
the Lord of surpassing power and terribleness,
when we despise His grace;
but, on the contrary,
He will have himself treated with
as the most affectionate friend when we love him;
and to this end
He would have us often speak with Him
familiarly and without restraint.
St. Alphonsus, How to Converse Familiarly with God, Part III

Friday, March 06, 2009

His delights are to be with you

The more to strengthen your confidence in God, often call to mind his loving treatment of you, and the gracious means he has used to drive you from the disorders of your life and your attachments to earth, in order to draw you to his holy love ; and therefore fear to have too little confidence in treating with your God, now that you have a resolute will to love and to please him with all your power.

The mercies he has granted you are most sure pledges of the love he bears you. God is displeased with a want of trust on the part of souls that heartily love him, and whom he loves. If, then, you desire to please his loving heart, converse with him from this day forward with the greatest confidence and tenderness you can possibly have.


I have graven thee in My hands :
thy walls are always before My eyes.
Beloved soul,
says the Lord,
what do you fear or mistrust ?
I have you written in my hands,
so as never to forget to do you good.
Are you afraid of your enemies ?
Know that the care of your defence is always before me,
so that I cannot lose sight of it.
Therefore did David rejoice, saying to God,
Thou hast crowned us as with a shield of Thy good will?
Who, O Lord! can ever harm us,
if Thou with Thy goodness and love
dost defend and encompass us round about ?

Above all, animate your confidence at the thought of the gift that God has given us of Jesus Christ: God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son? How can we ever fear, exclaims the Apostle, that God would refuse us any good, after he has vouchsafed to give us his own Son ? He delivered Him up for us all ; how hath He not also, with Him, given us all things ?

My delights are to be with the children of men.

The paradise of God, so to speak, is the heart of man.

Does God love you ? Love him.

His delights are to be with you; let yours be to be with himself, to pass all your lifetime with him, in the delight of whose company you hope to spend a blissful eternity.

Accustom yourself to speak with him alone, familiarly, with confidence and love, as to the dearest friend you have, and who loves you best.
St. Alphonsus, How to Converse Familiarly with God, Part II

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

God wishes Us to speak to Him with Confidence and Familiarity.

HOLY Job was struck with wonder to consider our God so devoted in benefiting man, and showing the chief care of his heart to be, to love man and to make himself beloved by him. Speaking to the Lord, he exclaims, What is man, that Thou shouldst magnify him, or why dost Thou set Thy Heart upon him?

Hence it is clearly a mistake to think that great confidence and familiarity in treating with God is a want of reverence to his Infinite Majesty.

You ought indeed, O devout soul! to revere him in all humility, and abase yourself before him; especially when you call to mind the unthankfulness and the outrages whereof, in past times, you have been guilty.

Yet this should not hinder your treating with him with the most tender love and confidence in your power.

He is Infinite Majesty;

but at the same time he is Infinite Goodness, Infinite Love.

In God you possess the Lord most exalted and supreme ; but you have also him who loves you with the greatest possible love. He disdains not, but delights that you should use towards him that confidence, that freedom and tenderness, which children use towards their mothers.


Hear how he invites us to come to his feet, and the caresses he promises to bestow on us: You shall be carried at the breasts, and upon the knees they shall caress you : as one whom the mother caresseth, so will I comfort you? As a mother delights to place her little child upon her knees, and so to feed or to caress him; with like tenderness does our gracious God delight to treat the souls whom he loves, who have given themselves wholly to him, and placed all their hopes in his goodness.
Consider, you have no friend nor brother, nor father nor mother, nor spouse nor lover, who loves you more than your God. The divine grace is that great treasure whereby we vilest of creatures, we servants, become the dear friends of our Creator himself: For she is an infinite treasure to me; which they that use become the friends of God. For this purpose he increases our confidence; he emptied himself and brought himself to nought, so to speak ; abasing himself even to becoming man and conversing familiarly with us: He conversed with men. He went so far as to become an infant, to become poor, even so far as openly to die the death of a malefactor upon the cross.

He went yet farther, even to hide himself under the appearance of bread, in order to become our constant companion and unite himself intimately to us:

He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood abideth in Me, and I in him. In a word, he loves you as much as though he had no love but towards yourself alone. For which reason you ought to have no love for any but for Himself. Of Him, therefore, you may say, and you ought to say, My Beloved to me, and I to Him. My God has given himself all to me, and I give myself all to him ; He has chosen me for his beloved, and I choose him, of all others, for my only Love: My Beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands?

Say, then, to him often, O my Lord! wherefore dost Thou love me thus ? what good thing dost Thou see in me ? Hast Thou forgotten the injuries I have done Thee? But since Thou hast treated me so lovingly, and instead of casting me into hell, hast granted me so many favors, whom can I desire to love from this day forward but Thee, my God, my all ? Ah, most gracious God, if in time past I have offended Thee, it is not so much the punishment I have deserved that now grieves me, as the displeasure I have given Thee, who art worthy of infinite love. But Thou knowest not how to despise a heart that repents and humbles itself: A contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise?

Ah, now, indeed, neither in this life nor in the other do I desire any but Thee alone: What have I in heaven ? and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth! Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever? Thou alone art and shalt be forever the only Lord of my heart, of my will; Thou my only good, my heaven, my hope, my love, my all: "The God of my heart, and the God that is my portion forever." St. Alphonsus, How to Converse Familiarly with God, Part I.

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Papa Stronsay receives the Visit of the Bishop of Aberdeen

On Monday, 23 February, 2009,
Feast of St. Peter Damian,
we celebrated the
Visit to Papa Stronsay and Stronsay
of His Lordship
The Right Reverend Peter Moran
Bishop of Aberdeen

On our way to meet Bishop Moran from the airstrip,
the island of Stronsay lies as a thin strip between sea and sky.

His Lordship met with
the Catholics of Stronsay who come to our chapel,
as well as Fr. Nicholas,
and then crossed over to Papa Stronsay.

The Bishop arrived and after greeting him and receiving his blessing
we escorted him to the Common Room where we were delighted to hear him.

Bishop Moran addressed the community
He told us of his participation in the recent Synod of Bishops in Rome
and of his visit to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.
After visiting the monastery complex
His Lordship assisted at the community Particular Examen and led us in the Angelus.
After dinner he met each of us individually
before setting off again for his return flight.

The calm sea

Alas! Today the weather was so calm that the airstrip was fogged-in and landing was impossible. His Lordship was happily marooned for the night and remained with us in the informal atmosphere that unforseen events sometimes provoke. He returned to Kirkwall the following morning on the 7 a.m. 'Steamer.'
Thank you for your paternal and encouraging visit!