The young are the immortal
who deign to walk among us
feted by the cosmos
and worshipped by all.
See the yellow sun
and the velvet night
colour the tresses
of their hair,
while the wind caresses
their skin with gentle care,
and the stars make sapphires
of their eyes.
Daylight kisses them madly
and will never let them shadily
disappear beneath the ground.
Every new dawn
brings warm
assurance they shall never die.
by Julian O’Dea
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 22, 2013 at 11:55 pm
Hi David,
I hope you don’t mind my OT query as follows:
Since blowing up my blog/s I have been somewhat soul searching, examining my faith, comparing what I know is true with what I see around me. I have come to the conclusion that the Catholic Church, as it stands today, is in heresy and is lead by heretics.
I am convinced by the evidence given by various sedevacantist sites. One need only observe the outward signs of our Catholic Church in decay and can only attribute that decay to those who started the rot, and continue the rot.
Going through some old blog posts of mine where I first contemplated this problem in some detail I was reminded of a comment by you that “I go to Trad Cath Latin Masses a fair bit. ”
Can you recommend a Catholic Church in Sydney that is not infected by Novus Ordo teachings please?
I have done extensive searches and it seems that we are thinly served, to say the least. The dilemna is how best to go about worshiping God as God instructed, that is, in His Mass as traditionally practiced. At the same time, those Masses need be performed by priests who aren’t of the current heresy. As such, I am lost as to where to go.
In the meantime I have resolved to start praying the Rosary daily as a beginning.
All the best mate and I hope you are in good health, and all is well for you and yours.
Cheers,
Pat Hannagan
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 1:52 am
Pat
I live in Canberra. My health has not been perfect of late and my mass attendance has been sporadic. However I have found the Latin masses here worthwhile, although I also go to English masses.
There are Latin masses in Sydney, and I do know some people who go to them. I can ask around. It would help if you would give me a bit of an idea where you live in Sydney, and what you are looking for. I am not a sedevacantist, but I could direct you to some FSSP chapels or even the SSPX if you prefer a group that are strongly sceptical of the turn the Church has taken since Vatican II.
It never rains but it pours. I have just been asked to write for a Latin Mass magazine under my real name, about these kinds of issues.
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 2:39 am
Sorry to hear about your ill health, I hope it isn’t anything serious and you fully recover soon.
I live in the Blue Mountains and believe there is a Latin Mass at Lawson every Sunday. However, I would like to be in touch with a group who holds correct practice and not just something that is done to appease old timers. (Which is not to criticise anyone in particular, just that the area in general is in terminal mess.)
The FSSP state at their website that they are “in obedience to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI.” so they are not an option.
If you know of an SSPX parish or the like in the area that would be a start.
I have just been asked to write for a Latin Mass magazine under my real name, about these kinds of issues.
That is excellent news! Please post whatever you write at this blog so I, and others, can read it. It most definitely is a critical issue for us all today.
I myself stopped going to Mass halfway through last year. I just cannot stand it anymore. The most dreary, pathetic, mumbling, half empty Protestant dirge like performance staged in a barn, all set to banal, idiotic hippy tunes. My kids can’t stand and I finally had to admit that I simply can’t stand it myself.
The Catholic education system itself is a disgrace and it seems to me one would be better to send their children to public schools and have them taught by catechists rather than the permissive bunch of non-believers masquerading as Catholics I pay to teach and thus pervert them.
Anyway, your advice would be of great assistance.
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 2:50 am
Pat
I shall ask my contacts about an SSPX parish in your general area and post back here. It might take a day or so.
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 2:59 am
Great, thanks mate.
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 3:28 am
Does this help? Mass centres for SSPX in NSW:
http://www.sspx.com.au/new_south_wales.html
I am collecting replies among my contacts. One said they like people to be well-dressed at Singleton. I pass that on for what it is worth!
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 3:47 am
Yes, thanks. I’ll go to the next Mass at Toongabbie and see if I can get some further direction.
One said they like people to be well-dressed at Singleton.
Ha, must I put on some thongs then instead of barefeet? That’s another grotesquery I am mightily sick of, all these board short clad dimwits and barely clothed girls handing out Communion, or dagging about the organ choir.
I shouldn’t be harsh on them though, our leaders are the ones that set them adrift.
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 4:00 am
I have never gotten over the time my wife and I went to mass at Orange. The entrance procession was led by a girl in jeans, who then proceeded to wander about in the sanctuary. She should have been in a dress, head covered in a pew. I remember being horrified as an altar boy when a girl went into the sanctuary merely to dust statues. I have always had reactionary tendencies!
I usually go to either the FSSP mass at Ss Peter and Paul, Garran, here in Canberra, or the N.O. English mass at St Michael’s, Kaleen, which is good and reverent for an English mass.
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 4:14 am
One wonders what they must think, I mean these well intentioned young people serving at this joke of a service we still call a Mass.
I travel to Canberra a fair bit throughout the year for work so, if you are up for it, I’d love to meet you and have a yarn over a beer or two (not sure if you are ok with drinking). The Wig and Pen is a great place to do that sort of thing.
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 4:41 am
Sounds good. I gave up alcohol about ten years ago for medical reasons. But I don’t have any problem with other people drinking. I usually just drink coke or lemon-lime-and-bitters.
When you are about to descend on Canberra, drop me a note here, and I’ll stick my phone number on here briefly. We can arrange to meet in town.
This blog is written under a pseudonym. And I don’t post personal details here if I can avoid it. It is getting complicated because now I am on facebook too under my real name and I have to remember which persona I am in.
I know the Wig and Pen. I could just catch a bus into Civic.
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 3:42 am
Btw, I really like your poem and shall get my oldest daughter to read it.
Not to claim too much but, your juxtaposition of
“Every new dawn
brings warm
assurance they shall never die.”
with the title “Legends of Our Youth” seemed providential in that one of the heresies of Benedict XVI is that salvation is open to all, outside of the Catholic Church.
What a happy world to live in and to come, for all! “feted by the cosmos” indeed.
What a mockery of all those martyrs and saints who died for our faith, determined to never forsake Her.
That “The young are the immortal
who deign to walk among us”
is a media driven myth, actually propaganda, as the young are bereft of life, condemned to be consumed by an eternal “now”.
Posted by David Collard on February 23, 2013 at 3:51 am
Pat, thank you. That is just about the most intelligent response I have had to one of my poems. It has made me realise that there is a link with Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal return.
If you don’t mind my asking, why did you give up blogging?
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 3:59 am
Because I was of unappeasable anger.
Just not happy with it, and felt it needed to be burned in order to grow again.
Posted by Pat Hannagan on February 23, 2013 at 4:05 am
Furthermore, most of what I write is unmitigated rubbish, especially so given the context of St Thomas Aquinas who felt that all he had written was as much as straw. And how would what I have done compare to him?!
I don’t mean that it has no purpose, but that I try to remind myself always that everything I have done is arrant nonsense compared to Christ, and so it needs regular purging.
I tried to get a sense of that futility, yet at the same time necessary part of life, the love of these things, with The Silence of st Thomas
Posted by CL on March 2, 2013 at 4:49 am
Mr Hannagan’s responses are interesting what with my penchant for blowing up my own podium from time to time. I haven’t seen his previous blog that I’m aware of, but I will have to read this again at a later date. Just… thoughts that need to percolate.
Posted by David Collard on March 2, 2013 at 4:56 am
CL, he used to have a blog with mainly Australian visitors.
Posted by David Collard on March 2, 2013 at 4:57 am
Although he did used to comment on places like In Mala Fide, another gone bloggy, so to speak.
Posted by CL on March 2, 2013 at 5:05 am
I get to feel like trying to teach people anything is futile and they won’t learn from someone else’s mistakes. If they really want to learn, it’s already been said by people much more articulate – and sympathetic – than I.
Posted by Julian O'Dea on March 17, 2013 at 3:54 am
Martin Amis:
” … thinking you are not going to die; that you are the clever exception; could be a definition of youth. “
Posted by Julian O'Dea on April 7, 2013 at 4:57 am
Quoted by CL:
Psalm 103: “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”
Posted by “the stars make sapphires of their eyes” | David Collard on April 7, 2013 at 5:30 am
[...] Quoting myself. [...]
Posted by Julian O'Dea on April 16, 2013 at 4:41 am
On the other hand:
The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.
—Homer, from The Iliad
From the Forgetful Muse blog:
http://forgetfulmuse.tumblr.com/post/48044945432/the-gods-envy-us-they-envy-us-because-were