I managed to oversleep, tsk; Prime is still ahead and I had to omit my morning walk but am otherwise more or less returned to the normal progress of the day. The temperature is close to 40, there's only a bit of damp, and the 'winter storm watch' warnings have disappeared from the weather apps on the mobile: I deduce from these that the ice-and-snow storm ain't happening, alas. Am recalling with nostalgia the forty minutes that afternoon a fortnight ago when snow fell and made the empty grey air beautiful.... Today is the feast of the Apparition of Our Lady Immaculate at Lourdes (CE, Introibo, Wiki English and French) and Holy Mass is streamed from Saint-Eugène at 1000.
This feast was extended to the whole Latin Church under Pius X, half a century after the appearance of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette Soubirous. As at one time the appearance of the Archangel Michael on Monte Gargano was celebrated in a great many dioceses, so now that the devotion to our Lady's sanctuary at Lourdes has attained to worldwide fame, it seemed fitting that the whole Western Church should in like manner celebrate the numerous appearances of the Immaculate Virgin to that innocent and simple little shepherdess. These revelations, the genuineness of which has been confirmed by thousands of miracles, appear to have been designed by divine Providence as the seal set by heaven on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, promulgated by Pius IX some years earlier. In a manner, then, they form part of the history of our Catholic dogmas, and from this point of view today’s liturgical feast is of great apologetic value, inasmuch as it shows that the Holy Ghost, according' to the divine promise, deducet ... in omnem veritatem.
Blessed Ildefonso continues by noting each of the elements of the Mass for today; he is inclined to be rather sniffy about the modern writer or writers. The Tractus, e.g., should be one of the Psalms but "... the modern composer, however, would seem to have been ignorant of the rules of its composition, for, instead of a psalm, he has given us a succession of verses strung together in haphazard fashion". I hope we are given a missa cantata this morning (two days in a row!) so I can hear the 'haphazard succession of verses', ha. The Benedictines at Jouques, who I can listen to via Neumz, are still in what is called, commonly, Ordinary Time, having abandoned the Tempus Septuagesimae i.e. they are still singing the Alleluia.
The Eugene Symphony is streaming a concert this evening which I will gladly listen to-- a string quartet made up of Symphony musicians will perform Beethoven, Smetana, and Tchaikovsky inter alia (two of which others are David Bowie and Journey, which are eminently skippable from my point of view). But. What I cannot get my head around is the great fanfare and to-do that this is being accompanied by-- I can f.ing stream myself reading Ausonius on YouTube, were I so inclined: the Symphony people cannot but be aware that hundreds of such streaming opportunities have been available during the last ten months. Why they are so late to the game, and such feeble contestants, I don't know. Eh. Space Oddity, indeed.
No High Mass this morning, alas. At least the service of the poor acolyte who seemed to be under the weather yesterday morning wasn't required today. I don't understand how I am following the Mass's livestream and the recording is already at YouTube. Hmm. And it plays live here. My poor head is confused. Pater Thomas SJ is the celebrant; his sermons are always quite clear and to the point, and I can almost follow the French, much of the time.
LDVM
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