Visit to Lisieux

The Basilica is a very impressive building, but the nicest part of it is the Crypt, where we attended the Old Rite Mass on the Sunday morning. I didn't get any photos during the Mass, I felt a bit inhibited, since we'd had one old lady give us one of those severe French 'stares' (anyone who's ever visited France will understand what I mean by that!) when we entered the Chapel. The photo below is taken just after Mass, when the two young men were returning the altar to novus ordo-ability.

The Mass itself was somewhat bizarre, for those who are used to the Usus Antiquior over here. The Priest seemed very unsure of himself, presumably because it was so long since he'd celebrated this Mass, but what got us, was that the Epistle was read in French by a layman, from a lecturn facing the people, followed by the Gospel read in French by the Priest, at the same lecturn - neither had been read through in Latin prior to this. The other odd thing was that they all stood during the consecration. Still it was better than the New Rite Mass we attended in the Carmel; charity prevents me from saying too much about that - suffice to say, it seemed very modern there... (and what they've done to the interior decor of the Carmel chapel made me very sad).

But, the mosaics in the Crypt are lovely, and I especially liked this statue of the Child Jesus - it was hard to get a photo in focus.


The upper Basilica main altar looks like this ..

And there is a shrine with a reliquary containing Therese's arm at the side (not sure about the dancing figure on the cross above, though!)

Outside, round the back of the Basilica, we found the tombs of Louis and Zelie Martin. Although their relics have been translated, and will be placed in a new shrine in the Crypt in September, prior to their Beatification on October 19th this year, we found it a good place to pray and have our photies taken by our son ...



who had climbed up lots of steps to a lovely outdoor altar, which he pointed out would make a great place to say the Old Mass, and then he decided to oblige us with a few of the actions the Priest would make, if he were to celebrate Mass there!






As I've already mentioned above, there was a little disappointment re the actual Carmel - especially as the sisters now come "out" for Mass, and sit at the front of the chapel - no strict enclosure there anymore - but the side chapel with Therese's remains is a lovely place to pray. I have to admit, when I first saw it, I wondered whether she was incorruptible, but actually, that is a wax effigy atop the tomb - it is very beautiful though.


But the most moving place, I found, was the family home of Les Buissonets. I really enjoyed its ordinariness, (in a 19th century way!). I didn't take any photos there, but looking for some on the internet, I came across a wonderful set, here on a lovely blog I've just discovered, called Laudem Gloriae.

I prayed for the intentions of all those who read this blog, so I'm sure Therese, and her Ma and Pa are interceding for you!

Beautiful Buddleia-Basking Butterflies!

What a delight to come back to this view from beyond my grubby kitchen sink! There are so many butterflies feasting on the buddleia, that I had to dash out and capture some pics.
This one obliged with several poses..



And I just managed to get a shot of this chap before he flew away!


We're off to Lisieux for a few days tomorrow, so Happy Feast of the Assumption to one and all - we'll be popping in to Reading on the way for the EF Mass, and to visit some home-schooling friends. And then in Lisieux, on Sunday, they should be having one of the first Traditional Latin Masses in a long time, at the Basilica, (to which we were alerted by Fr Hermeneutic's blog!) so we hope to be able to attend that. It's funny, but when I first began to be drawn to the Traditional Mass, people used to try to convince me that the New Mass was a wonderful invention, that did away with the dry dull old one, and one thought would come to me, "But what about people like Saint Therese of Lisieux, and other great Saints - surely they were happy with the Mass the way it was?"
I shall remember the intentions of all you bloggers, and especially recommend the married ones to Louis and Zelie Martin, although I fear they may not be "in" at present - their bodies having been exhumed, due to the investigation in to their cause for canonisation. Apparently they won't be "home" again 'till September, still, I'm sure Therese will put in a word for us with her ma and pa!!

Early Canonisation!

I have been canonised.

I was at Mass the other night, in a Church I don't often get to, which has the Old Rite on a first Friday. After it was ended, huddled inside my mantilla (I have a very large one - a sort of "gorilla" mantilla,) making my thanksgiving and avoiding any of the chit-chattering old dears, I sensed someone shuffling into the pew ahead of me, and then stopping directly in front of me. I realised I could avoid the inevitable no longer, (there was no-one else around, so I knew the visitation was for me), looked up, and saw a little old lady, who eagerly wanted to talk to me. She wanted me to pray for her family situation - the new great-granddaughter whose father has abandoned her and the mum, due to the fact that she is to be baptised, he being a Moslem. It's funny, but whenever I get "feelings" about our failure to adopt, I often hear of a baby in need of prayers - spiritual adoption is definitely a much needed thing, these days - so many children need prayers. I have an extreme reluctance to talk to anyone whilst in Church, apart from Our Lord, unless it is really necessary, so I kept my responses to her, to many smiles, and nods of sympathy, with promises to pray for the situation. But what truly horrified me, was what she came out with next - "You are a Saint" - I think I looked suitably aghast, and then laughed in embarrasment, that she should think such a thing, but again, being in Church, I couldn't protest too loudly now, could I?

Anyway, just in case anyone else out there has got the wrong impression of me, I will now post what my husband read out to me from our Saints book, as being pertinent to my salvation - he being under no illusion as to my level of sanctity -

(This is from Saint Francis de Sales - brilliant man)

The remedies against anger are:

1) To forestall its movements, if possible, or at least to cast them aside quickly, by turning the thoughts to something else. (Tried this, it worked well for about half a day).

2) In imitation of the Apostles when they saw the sea raging, to have recourse to God, whose office it is to give peace to the heart. (Forgot this one, on the spur of the moment).

3) During the heat of passion, not to speak, nor take any action as to the matter in question. (This one lasted about half a minute).

4) To strive to perform acts of kindness and humility towards the person against whom one is incensed, especially in reparation for any of a contrary nature.(Mmmm have to wait 'till the anger subsides!)

Humble mildness is the Virtue of Virtues, which Our Lord has recommended to us, and therefore we ought to practise it everywhere and always. Evil is to be shunned, but peaceably. Good is to be done, but with suavity. Take this for your rule: Do what you see can be done with Charity, and what cannot be done without disturbance, LEAVE UNDONE. In short, peace and tranquility of heart ought to be uppermost in all our actions, as olive oil floats above all liquors.

To keep the soul continually in a state of gentle calm, it is necessary to perform every action as being done in the presence of God, and as if He Himself had ordained it.

Now isn't that the most fantastic advice for those of us who are prone to anger? - even Saints like me!

(By the way, if anyone wants to make any of those little Holy cards with pictures of a saint on, please feel free to use the images in this post).

Spiritual Reading for the Day, Husband Style!

At breakfast my dearest was reading today's spiritual snippet from the book, "A Year With the Saints"; there is usually a short piece from some saint regarding the month's chosen Virtue, this month's being obedience, followed by one or two anecdotes from the lives of the saints which show how they put the virtue into practise. First I hear this quote from St. Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi -"A little drop of simple obedience is worth a million times more than a whole vase full of the choicest contemplations". Followed by the first anecdote of a holy nun who, whilst enjoying the company of the Infant Jesus in her cell, was summoned by her Superioress. After obeying the summons, she returned to find Jesus as a full-grown youth, thus He showed her how much her prompt obedience had caused Him to grow spiritually in her heart in so short a time. Next I hear the story of a saintly wife, who, while saying her prayers, was interrupted five times by her husband asking her to switch the Sports channel over for him, and she willingly obeyed...

I wonder if he does it to see if I'm truly awake and listening at that time of the morning!!

(The real story is of St Frances of Rome who was reciting the Office of the Blessed Virgin, she was interrupted four times by the voice of her husband calling her. Each time she answered promptly, and when she returned the fourth time, she found the antiphon written in letters of gold. So that's why all that gold writing keeps appearing in my prayer books eh?).

Saints Leo the Great, and Guthlac of Crowland

Two great Saints share 11th April Feast Day.



LEO THE GREAT, POPE, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH, died 461.

During the disintegration of the Western Empire, when heresy was rife and all moral values were threatened by the barbarian invasions, Pope Leo I stands out as the resolute champion of the faith. His courage and sagacity lifted the prestige of the Holy See mightily, and earned for him the title of "The Great," a distinction bestowed on but one other pope, Gregory I. The Church honoured Leo further with the title of Doctor because of his expositions of Christian doctrine, extracts from which are now incorporated in the lessons of the Catholic breviary. Of his birth and early years we have no reliable information; his family was probably Tuscan. In 440 he was consecrated Pope. Ninety six sermons of his have survived, in which we find Leo stressing the virtues of almsgiving, fasting, and prayer, and also expounding Catholic doctrine with clarity and conciseness, in particular the dogma of the Incarnation. Also one hundred and forty-three letters written by him, and thirty letters written to him, have been preserved; they illustrate the Pope's extraordinary vigilance over the Church in all parts of the Empire.

It's amazing how people think that the Catholic Church's teachings were all made up in the Middle Ages, and yet there is so much written evidence for Her beliefs from such an early age.

Pope Leo vigorously fought against several heresies - Manichaeanism - Priscillianism - Nestorianism, and its opposite, Eutychianism.
I love the names of these heresies, but it's so hard to get the spelling right!! They are fascinating to study, and if one does, one can see how they rear their ugly heads again in some of the theories that are put about today, even amongst people who call themselves Christians. It just shows how the Church needs a leader who can definitively guide her through the murky waters.

Basically, the Manichaeans had a theory that all matter was evil. The Priscillian sect had made great headway in Spain, and as it developed there, it seems to have combined astrology and fatalism with the Manichaean beliefs - has a New Age tinge to it doesn't it?
While Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431, taught a doctrine of the humanity of Christ, according to which God the divine Son and Jesus the Man were always two distinct persons; Jesus alone was born of woman, and as a man of surpassing goodness became the dwelling place of the Word, which was incarnate in him. He was deposed and excommunicated by the Council of Ephesus. This was the Council that defined Mary as "Theotokos", ie, the Mother of God, a widely-held orthodox belief, that Nestorius preached against.
I have spoken with several Protestants who do not believe that Mary is anything other than an ordinary, good woman, not entirely sinless, but one who had a special role to play. I believe that if they can not see that Mary, defined so early on in the Church as the Mother of God, had to be sinless, then they do not fully understand her Son's Divinity or humanity. They end up making up a God to suit their beliefs, rather than allowing themselves to be led to the One True God by His Immaculate Mother.

Then Abbot Eutyches of Constantinople, was condemned by a synod in 449, for falling into heresy. In his writings it seemed clear that Eutyches had fallen into the error of denying the human nature of Christ, a heresy which was the opposite of Nestorianism.

Leo's “Tome” (written in 449 ) was read by his legates in 451, to a council which was held at Chalcedon. In it he concisely defined the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation and the two natures of Christ, avoiding the pitfalls of Nestorianism on the one hand and of Eutychianism on the other. "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!" exclaimed the bishops. This statement of the two-fold nature of Christ was to be accepted by later ages as the Church's official teaching.

So, any "Christians" who still don't believe that Jesus is Fully human and Fully divine, should get off the boat now! (And stop calling themselves Christian too!).


Our next wonderful Saint of the Day is said to be one of the most popular Saints among Englishmen prior to the Norman Conquest, second only to Saint Cuthbert.

He was born about 673, and died at Crowland, England, on 11 April, 714. The authority for the life of St. Guthlac is a monk called Felix, who, in dedicating it to King Æthelbald, Guthlac's friend, assures him that whatever he has written, he had derived immediately from old and intimate companions of the saint. Guthlac was born of royal blood, from the Mercian tribe of Guthlacingas. In his boyhood he showed extraordinary signs of piety; after eight or nine years spent in warfare, during which he never quite forgot his early training, he became filled with remorse and determined to enter a monastery. This he did at Repton (in what is now Derbyshire). Here after two years of great penance and earnest application to all the duties of the monastic life, (where he wasn't too popular because of his total abstinence from intoxicating drink - made all the others feel guilty, I suppose!) he became fired with enthusiasm to emulate the wonderful penance of the Fathers of the Desert. For this purpose he retired with two companions to Crowland, a lonely island in the dismal fen-lands of modern Lincolnshire. In this solitude he spent fifteen years of the most rigid penance, fasting daily taking only coarse bread and water. Apparently, he was tempted by the Devil, who came disguised as his (very holy) sister, Pega, who was also a hermit at Crowland, trying to get him to break his vow never to eat before sunset. To prevent further attempts of this nature, Guthlac ordered Pega to leave the island, and they never met again. The picture above is taken from a late 12th C. set of illustrations, usually called the Guthlac roll, now in the British Museum, and shows Pega being sent away. Thus Like St. Anthony he was frequently attacked and severely maltreated by the Evil One, and on the other hand was the recipient of extraordinary graces and powers. The birds and the fish became his familiar friends, while the fame of his sanctity brought throngs of pilgrims to his cell.
Guthlac, after his death, in a vision to Æthelbald, revealed to him that he should one day become king. The prophecy was verified in 716. During Holy Week of 714, Guthlac sickened and announced that he should die on the seventh day, which he did joyfully. The anniversary (11 April) has always been kept as his feast. Many miracles were wrought at his tomb, which soon became a centre of pilgrimage. His old friend, Æthelbald, on becoming king, proved himself a generous benefactor. Soon a large monastery arose, and through the industry of the monks, prospered. Felix's Latin "Life" was later turned into Anglo-Saxon prose by some unknown hand.

Two very inspiring men.

Suffering, or Miracle-Working?

Every morning my dear husband reads a page from a book entitled "A Year with the Saints" published by Tan, which he found in a souvenir shop in Lourdes. The readings are wonderful, and the excerpts from the Saints' lives and speech are inspiring.

I often think of the debates that are had in blogland. There was one blogger who liked to pop in to Catholic blogs and put in his (Ex-Catholic, now Evangelical Protestant) penny's worth in the comments boxes. He frequently berated Catholics, particularly those who liked to attend the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, for not performing miracles, whilst he claimed he, and his charismatic friends were causing miracles left right and centre, even raising people from the dead. He also took exception to the Catholic acceptance of suffering.
This morning's reading seemed very appropriate to this debate - it is from St. John Chrysostom, who lived from about 347 until his death in 407 AD.

"If the Lord should give you power to raise the dead, He would give much less than He does when He bestows suffering. By miracles you would make yourself debtor to Him, while by suffering He may become debtor to you. And even if sufferings had no other reward than being able to bear something for that God who loves you, is not this a great reward and a sufficient remuneration? Whoever loves, understands what I say."
The Saint set such a high value on suffering that he even said: "I venerate St. Paul not so much for having been raised to the third heaven, as for the imprisonmment he suffered. And so, if I were asked whether I would be placed in Heaven among the angels, or in prison with Paul, I would prefer the latter. And if it were left to my choice whether I should be Peter in chains, or the angels that released him, I would certainly rather be the first than the second."

Now there's a saint who goes back a long way, so our Catholic view of suffering isn't all a Mediaeval invention, after all! (As our Protestant friend would claim).

Now all I need is the grace to be able to stop waiting for miracles to happen, and just get down and accept all that suffering that I get thrown at me, with a great big, Thank You Jesus!

A Great Catholic Wife and Mother

I've been meaning to post about my confirmation saint, and inspiration for my blog name. We visited her house, in York, several years ago, and I found it very moving to be there, and to be able to pray at her shrine. We even managed to get to see her hand, preserved in a Convent in York. I'm sure I didn't really appreciate who she was when I chose her name, at the age of 11, although I have always been profoundly moved by her story. Yet I'm sure she's had a hand in guiding me through life, and I feel it is significant that she was a wife and mother, as I have become; also that she died on 25th March, the Day of the Annunciation, which is the day my husband and I married. She died for her Catholic Faith, the Truth, which she could not deny - I hope and pray that she will intercede for me if I am ever put in a situation where I have to stand up for the faith.

Her husband was devastated by her death: “Let them take all I have and save only her, she is the best wife in all England, and the best Catholic”.

Here is a short biography of her.

St. Margaret Clitherow, Martyr, called the "Pearl of York", born about 1556; died 25 March 1586. She was a daughter of Thomas Middleton, Sheriff of York (1564-5), a wax-chandler; married John Clitherow, a wealthy butcher and a chamberlain of the city, in St. Martin's church, Coney St., 8 July, 1571, and lived in the Shambles, a street still unaltered. Converted to the Faith about three years later, she became most fervent, continually risking her life by harbouring and maintaining priests, was frequently imprisoned, sometimes for two years at a time, yet never daunted, and was a model of all virtues. Though her husband belonged to the Established Church, he had a brother a priest, and Margaret provided two chambers, one adjoining her house and a second in another part of the city, where she kept priests hidden and had Mass continually celebrated through the thick of the persecution. Some of her priests were martyred, and Margaret who desired the same grace above all things, used to make secret pilgrimages by night to York Tyburn to pray beneath the gibbet for this intention. Finally arrested on 10 March, 1586, she was committed to the castle. On 14 March, she was arraigned before Judges Clinch and Rhodes and several members of the Council of the North at the York assizes. Her indictment was that she had harboured priests, heard Mass, and the like; but she refused to plead, since the only witnesses against her would be her own little children and servants, whom she could not bear to involve in the guilt of her death. She was therefore condemned to the peine forte et dure, i.e. to be pressed to death. "God be thanked, I am not worthy of so good a death as this", she said. Although she was probably with child, this horrible sentence was carried out on Lady Day, 1586 (Good Friday). She had endured an agony of fear the previous night, but was now calm, joyous, and smiling. She walked barefooted to the tolbooth on Ousebridge, for she had sent her hose and shoes to her daughter Anne, in token that she should follow in her steps. She had been tormented by the ministers and even now was urged to confess her crimes. "No, no, Mr. Sheriff, I die for the love of my Lord Jesu", she answered. She was laid on the ground, a sharp stone beneath her back, her hands stretched out in the form of a cross and bound to two posts. Then a door was placed upon her, which was weighted down till she was crushed to death. Her last words during an agony of fifteen minutes, were "Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! have mercy on me!" Her right hand is preserved at St. Mary's Convent, York, but the resting-place of her sacred body is not known. Her sons Henry and William became priests, and her daughter Anne a nun at St. Ursula's, Louvain.
Her life, written by her confessor, John Mush, exists in two versions. The earlier has been edited by Father John Morris, S.J., in his "Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers", third series (London, 1877). The later manuscript, now at York Convent, was published by W. Nicholson, of Thelwall Hall, Cheshire (London, Derby, 1849), with portrait: "Life and Death of Margaret Clitherow the martyr of York". It also contains the "History of Mr. Margaret Ward and Mrs. Anne Line, Martyrs".
[Note: St. Margaret Clitherow was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970.]
Publication information:
Written by Bede Camm. Transcribed by Marcia L. Bellafiore.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV. Published 1908. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York