Of Corpus Christi! And the sequence Lauda Sion salvatorem, too. These are the means by which most of us are touched by the greatness of St Thomas Aquinas: not by the wisdom and sublimity of the Angelic Doctor but by the beauty of his office for Corpus Christi. Eheu, of course it is also true that most believers won't hear this office or be present at it and if they do it will probably not be today: where this is not a feast of obligation, it is moved or can be to the Sunday (which is indeed when I will hear the Mass, from Saint Eugène in Paris, Sunday morning). Given the inability of the Bishops and the large body of the faithful in these latter days to bother themselves to attend Mass during the week, Ascension and Corpus Christi are almost always moved to the Sunday following... but I digress. Am writing this during the preaching of the sermon at St Mary's Shrine in Warrington-- the FSSP there are at least celebrating the proper office this morning, although it is not a solemn Mass so am guessing that they too will celebrate that on Sunday.
It looks to be a cloudy morning, as Dawn rises to the east. But the birds are singing away to celebrate the glory of the returning day, poor little thoughtless creatures who are more faithful to their Creator than most of us.
The chickadees are back-- I hear them, anyway. They aren't feeding at my window sill, though. There is a squirrel on the roof, on the rain gutter, looking down at the sill. I tried three times throwing nuts up to it-- it didn't catch 'em, and they fell to the ground outside my window. What would be very amusing would be for it to jump down just as I have my fat head out there looking up; amusing but probably not a bit of theatre good for the well-being of my spectacles. Time for the fish oil capsules and then Terce. I threw out a nut for the jays a second or two after one had taken flight (to the security of the trees, presumably) and it returned, with the nut it already had still in its beak, to move the new nut to the 'staging area' i.e. a disused, covered glass aquarium (they can hear the nuts fall onto the deck). Sometimes they will sit there and open the peanuts, sometimes they carry two or three there and then fly off with one after the other; often, that is where they'll perch while eyeing the window from whence their blessings flow. Are tossed.
I thought of the beginning of Sir James MacMillan's Since it was the day of preparation earlier and have been listening to the entire work this morning. The texts are, more or less, that part of St John's Gospel which takes place after Our Lord's Crucifixion (MacMillan's St John Passion being devoted to the first part of the Gospel). Unfortunately, that short video supra of Elizabeth Kenny's theorbo is the only section on YouTube. It is one of the composer's works that I've learned to appreciate, as distinct from, say, his Miserere or The Berserking that I enjoyed at first hearing.
***
Comments
Post a Comment