Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

Sunday 10 December 2023

Basilica Of Santa Croce, Italy.



Basilica Of Santa Croce,
Lecce, Italy.


English: The High Altar,
Basilica Santa Croce, Florence, Italy.
Español: Basílica de la Santa Cruz, Florencia, Italia.
Photo: 18 September 2022.
Source: Own work.
Attribution:
Diego Delso, delso.photo.
Licence: CC-BY-SA.
Author: Diego Delso.
(Wikimedia Commons)

The Web-Site of Basilica Santa Croce can be seen

It Is Never A Very Good Idea To Oversleep In The Morning !!! Somebody Will Not Be Happy. There Will Be Repercussions.



The Third Day Within The Octave Of The Immaculate Conception. 10 December.



The Immaculate Conception.
Artist: Anonymous.
Date: 17th-Century.
Current location: Museo Carmen Thyssen, Malaga, Spain.
Source: http://www.carmenthyssenmalaga.org/
Author: Anonymous.
(Wikimedia Commons)


The Third Day Within The Octave Of The Immaculate Conception.
   10 December.

Semi-Double.

White Vestments.


Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

The Church prolongs within eight days the Feast of Mary’s Victory over the devil and repeats The Mass Celebrated on the Feast, itself.

The most important Feasts of The Virgin are The Assumption and The Immaculate Conception, both of The First Class and both with an Octave.

That is why each day the Creed is Said or Sung, that Profession of Faith fixed at the Council of Constantinople, which was only Chanted when the attendance in Church was very large.

Let us prepare for the Birth of Christ, in our hearts, by adorning them with a little of His Mother’s Purity.

Mass: As on the Feast of The Immaculate Conception.
Commemoration: Of the Feria.
Commemoration: Of Saint Melchiades, from Mass: Státuit.
Creed: Is Said or Sung.
Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin Mary.

Saturday 9 December 2023

“Tota Pulchra Es, Maria, Et Macula Originalis Non Est In Te”. “Thou Art All Fair, O, Mary, There Is No Spot Of Original Sin In Thee”.



Miniature (Illuminated Manuscript) from
Liber choralis parvus continens missas vesperas
et alia officia par S. Leonardi confes.
Date: 6 January 2015.
Source: Liber choralis parvus continens missas
vesperas et alia officia par S. Leonardi confes.
Author: Unknown.
This File: 16 July 2016.
User: Fulvio314
(Wikimedia Commons)



“Tota Pulchra Es, Maria”.
Composed by: Bruckner.
Sung by: Lincoln Cathedral Choir.
Available on YouTube at


Text is taken from, and can be read in full at, VULTUS CHRISTI
unless stated otherwise.

The Immaculate Conception.

Year after year, I open my Antiphonal, to prepare The Office of The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary, and I am stunned by the beauty of the Antiphons that The Church places in our mouths to sing of this Mystery. These Antiphons diffuse a certain Luminous Whiteness, a fragrance of Divine Purity, a Penetrating Grace.

All Lovely.

The Divine Office gives me the very words that The Holy Ghost would have us pronounce, and the very melody that best carries them. I have only to take a breath, and sing what The Church wants me to sing. Her words, not mine: Words crafted by The Church under the overshadowing of The Holy Ghost; words for all of Eve’s hapless children who know not how to Pray as they ought.

“Tota pulchra es, Maria, et macula originalis non est in te”. “Thou art all fair, O, Mary, there is no spot of original sin in thee” (Ct 4, 7). Tota pulchra: All fair, all lovely, all beautiful or, to use the words of The Angel Gabriel: “Gratia plena”, “Full of Grace”.


In Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot,” one of his characters comments on the portrait of a woman, named Nastassya Filippovna, saying: “One could turn the World upside down with beauty like that.”

The beauty of The Immaculate Conception does not turn the World upside down; it is more radical than that. It is the beginning of a new World. It is the beauty of a new genesis, of Paradise re-invented in a little girl, conceived, as Bernanos put it, “younger than sin.”

The Heartbeat Of Hope.

Immaculate Beauty crushes the head of the ancient serpent. Read Genesis 3: 9-15, 20. The Human Race receives in the person of The Immaculate Conception a new “Mother Of All The Living.” The Heartbeat Of Hope begins its rhythm in the womb of Saint Anne. Nothing will ever again be the same.

The second Antiphon describes Mary as she appeared to Bernadette in 1858, in the grotto overlooking The Gave River: “Vestimentum tuum candidum quasi nix, et facies tua sicut sol”. “Thy raiment is White as Snow, and thy countenance as The Sun” (Ct 1:3, 4).


It was 155 years ago that the young woman, robed in White, with her countenance indescribably radiant, said to Bernadette: “I am The Immaculate Conception.” The Virgin revealed to Bernadette the Mystery of her identity, hidden in God from before The Creation of The World, and unspoiled in time, untouched by the ravages of sin.

This Antiphon is a key to understanding what The Apostle wrote to The Ephesians 1:4: He (The Father) chose us in Him (Christ Jesus) that we should be holy and unspotted (that is, immaculate) in His sight in Charity, (that is, in The Holy Ghost, The Living Flame of Love).

Look at Mary, and discover what The Father wants for you in Christ. Look at Mary, and marvel at what The Father will do for you, by The Blood of Christ, in The Power of The Holy Ghost. If you would advance steadily — however slowly, and notwithstanding the occasional fall — toward holiness, keep your eyes fixed on Mary.


Jubilancy In The 8th Mode.

The third Antiphon begins, not as most 8th Mode pieces do, on Fa, or Sol, or La, or Re, but, rather, in the heights of The Church’s jubilancy, on Do. The Church not only gives us words in her Liturgy; she interprets them for us. She communicates their mystic secrets by means of the melodies with which she clothes them. “Tu gloria, Jerusalem, tu lætitia Israel, tu honorificentia populi nostri”. “Thou art the exaltation of Jerusalem, thou art the great glory of Israel, thou art the great rejoicing of our Nation.”

This Antiphon is The Church’s response to The Introit of The Mass of The Immaculate Conception in which Mary sings her joy: “I will greatly rejoice in The Lord, and my Soul shall be joyful in my God” (Is 61:10).

The Church, having listened to Mary, sing her joy, holds that joy in her heart, and, then, turning to Mary, honours her with a triple Title:

— Exaltation of Jerusalem: High point of The Church, the pinnacle of the new creation;
— Glory of Israel: Everything, and everyone in salvation, history, looks to The Immaculate Conception and, in her, is gloriously lifted up;
— Great rejoicing of our Nation: Where Mary is present, there will always be joy. Where Mary is absent, there cannot but be sadness and gloom.


We Will Run After Thee.

The fourth Antiphon catches hold of my heart and does not let it ago. It is a Prayer of Petition, a pleading addressed to Mary. It is the expression of the Soul’s deepest longings, the perfect complement to The Gospel of the Annuciation (Lk 1:26-2 :38). “Trahe nos, Virgo immaculate, post te curremus, in odorem unguentorum tuorum”. “Draw us, Maiden undefiled, we will run after thee in the odour of thy perfumes.”

True devotion to The Blessed Virgin Mary is not static and sedentary. It is dynamic. It obliges us to get up and run. What is more elusive than the scent of a sweet fragrance borne on the wind ? It is the fragrance of Mary, sweet beyond all imagining; pure, and purifying; irresistible, drawing Souls after her, even Souls once sunk in the putrefaction and stench of habitual sin.

Mary is, for all of us sinners, the way upward and forward; the way out of sin, and into holiness; the way into a whole new order of things in which an Angel says: “No word (no thing) shall be impossible with God” (Lk 1:37), and in which each of us is called to say: “Behold the handmaid of The Lord; be it done to me according to thy word (Lk 1:38).


Consecration To The Immaculata.

How can we go about appropriating for ourselves The Graces of The Feast of The Immaculate Conception ? The Saints teach us the inestimable value of making an Act of Consecration to The Immaculata, to Mary, The “Tota Pulchra”, and of renewing it, frequently.

It is a way of saying: “Everything that I see in thy eyes, O, Mary, everything that thy Immaculate Heart desires for me, I too desire, and so that the will of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit may be realised in me, I hand myself over to thee. I give thee my past, my present, and my future, holding nothing back, reserving no times, or places, or things for myself.

All is thine.”


The following Text is from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia.

“Tota pulchra es” is an ancient Catholic Prayer, written
in the 4th-Century A.D. It is one of the five Antiphons for the Psalms of Second Vespers for the Feast of The Immaculate Conception.

The Title means: “You are completely beautiful” (referring to The Virgin Mary). It speaks of her Immaculate Conception. It takes some Text from the Book Of Judith, and other Text from Song of Songs, specifically 4:7.

Composers to set the Prayer to music, include: Robert Schumann; Anton Bruckner, Pablo Casals; Maurice Duruflé; Guillaume du Fay; Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki; Heinrich Isaac; James MacMillan; Ola Gjeilo.

Blasts From The Past.



“Together In Electric Dreams”.
Sung by: Philip Oakey.
Available on YouTube at

“Wind Beneath My Wings”.
Sung by: Bette Midler.
Available on YouTube at


“Eternal Flame”.
Sung by: The Bangles.
Available on YouTube at


“The Way We Were”.
Sung by: Barbra Streisand.
Available on YouTube at


“Have I Told You Lately That I Love You”.
Sung by: Rod Stewart.
Available on YouTube at


“The Prayer”.
Sung by: Andrea Bocelli and Céline Dion.
Available on YouTube at

Zephyrinus’s New Fridge Has Arrived !!! Perkins (Chauffeur) And Jeeves (Butler) Are Threatening To Leave.



Illustration: PINTEREST

A Liturgical Note On The Season Of Advent.



Christmas Services at Gloucester Cathedral.
Available at


The following Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

In the 5th-Century A.D., the opening date of The Ecclesiastical Year was The Feast of The Annunciation which, originally kept in March, was later transferred to December.

“Following what is the practice elsewhere,”, says The Council of Toledo in 665 A.D., “The Annunciation will be kept throughout Spain on 18 December, since, at present, it often falls in Lent or at Easter.”

In the 10th-Century A.D., The Ecclesiastical Year began on The First Sunday of Advent, some weeks before Christmas.

As early as 380 A.D., a Council of Saragossa decreed an eight days' Preparation for Christmas.


At The Council of Tours (563 A.D.), Advent is referred to as: “A Liturgical Period having its own Proper Rites and Forms”.

In The Nestorian Liturgy (6th Century A.D.), Advent lasted for four Sundays, called “Sundays of The Annunciation”, and, in The Ambrosian Liturgy and The Mozarabic Liturgy, six Sundays were reckoned.

In The Roman Liturgy, we find that, at first, Advent lasted five weeks [The Collect and Gospel of The Last Sunday After Pentecost (at a certain time the first of The Five Advent Sundays) have kept much of the character of this Season].


At present, The Roman Liturgy includes four Sundays: The First Sunday of Advent is always the Sunday next to Saint Andrew's Feast Day, which is kept on 30 November.

The joy of beholding the speedy coming of Christ is one of the dominant notes of Advent; restrained, at first, but quickly taking free course and rising to the fervour of The Christmas Spirit. At the same time, the thought of The Purification of Souls, closely connected with that of the return of Christ, occurs at this time, on every page of The Breviary and The Missal.

Hymns, choice of Psalms, the Preaching of The Prophets and of The Forerunner of Christ, The Collects of The Four Sundays, the oft-repeated Versicle: “Rectas fácite sémitas ejus,” [“Make straight His paths”]; all these speak of the necessity of preparing our Souls for the approach of Our Redeemer in His twofold coming.


“Do Penance,” said Our Lord, “for The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” [Antiphon, Ben., Monday, Fourth Week in Advent].

In The Middle Ages, a Fast was prescribed during Advent, known as “The Christmas Lent”, when it was even the custom to veil images, as at Passiontide. In our times, Purple Vestments are still used, as in Lent, and the “Benedicamus Domino” replaces the “Ite Missa Est”.


During Advent, the Antiphon “Alma Redemptoris Mater” is sung with its accompanying Versicle “Angelus Domini”, while The Second Prayer is The Collect of The Mass “De Beata”, chosen on account of the part played by Our Lady in The Mystery of The Incarnation with which, for the time being, The Church is concerned.

For the present, we hear no more the “Gloria in Excelsis”, for that is The Angels' song of The Nativity, and this new Ecclesiastical Year, just beginning, it is at Christmas that it must be heard for the first time.

The Second Day Within The Octave Of The Immaculate Conception. 9 December.


Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

The Second Day Within The Octave Of The Immaculate Conception.
   9 December.

Semi-Double.

White Vestments.


The Immaculate Conception.
Artist: Anonymous.
Date: 17th-Century.
Current location: Museo Carmen Thyssen, Malaga, Spain.
Source: http://www.carmenthyssenmalaga.org/
Author: Anonymous.
(Wikimedia Commons)

The Church prolongs within eight days The Feast of Mary's Victory over the devil and repeats The Mass Celebrated yesterday.

The most important Feasts of The Virgin are The Assumption and The Immaculate Conception, both of The First Class and both with an Octave.

That is why each day The Creed is Said or Sung, that Profession of Faith fixed at The Council of Constantinople, which was only Chanted when the attendance in Church was very large.

Let us prepare for The Birth of Christ, in our hearts, by adorning them with a little of His Mother's Purity.

Mass: As on The Feast of The Immaculate Conception.
Second Collect: Of The Feria.
Third Collect: Of The Holy Ghost.
Creed: Is Said or Sung.
Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin Mary.

Friday 8 December 2023

Some Magnificent Cathedrals In France.



Some magnificent Cathedrals in France.
Available on YouTube

The Immaculate Conception Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. Feast Day 8 December.



Image: SHUTTERSTOCK

The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
   Feast Day 8 December.

Double of The First-Class
   with an Octave.

White Vestments.



The Immaculate Conception.
Artist: René de Cramer.
“Copyright Brunelmar/Ghent/Belgium”.
Used with Permission.


Feast of The Immaculate Conception
of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Available on YouTube at

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

Having decided, from all Eternity, to make Mary The Mother of The Incarnate Word (Epistle), God willed that she should crush the head of the serpent from the moment of her Conception.

He covered her “with a Mantle of Holiness” (Introit) and, “preserving her Soul from all stain, He made her a worthy dwelling place for His Son” (Collect).


The Feast of “The Conception” of The Virgin was:

From the 8th-Century A.D., Celebrated in The East on 
9 December;

From the 9th-Century A.D., Celebrated in Ireland on 3 May;

In the 11th-Century, in England, Celebrated on 8 December.

The Benedictines, with Saint Anselm, and The Franciscans, with Duns Scotus (1308), favoured the Feast of “The Immaculate Conception,” which, in 1128, was kept in Anglo-Saxon Monasteries.


Feast of The Immaculate Conception
of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Available on YouTube at


In the 15th-Century, Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan, erected, at The Vatican, the Sixtine (Sistine) Chapel in honour of The Conception of The Virgin. And, on 8 December 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX officially proclaimed this great Dogma, making himself the mouthpiece of all the Christian Tradition summed up in the words of the Angel: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, The Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women” (Gospel). “Thou art all beautiful, O Mary, and the original stain is not in thee”, says, in truth, the Alleluia Verse.

Like the Dawn, which announces the day, Mary precedes The Sun of Justice, which will soon illumine the World of Souls. Bringing to us her Son, it is she who first appears in The Liturgical Cycle.


Let us ask God “to heal us and to deliver us from all our sins” (Secret, Postcommunion) in order that, by the Graces which specially belong to the Feast of “The Immaculate”, we may become more worthy of receiving Jesus in our hearts when He comes into them on 25 December.

Every Parish Priest Celebrates Mass for the people of his Parish.

Mass: Gaudens gaudébo.
Commemoration: Of the Feria.
Creed: Is said.
Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin: “Et te in Conceptióne Immaculáta”, which is said during the Octave.





THE SAINT ANDREW DAILY MISSAL







THE SAINT ANDREW DAILY MISSAL

Available (in U.K.) from

Available (in U.S.A.) from

Available (in Ireland) from
SILVERSTREAM PRIORY





“Gaudens Gaudébo In Domino, Et Exultábit Ánima Mea In Deo Meo”. “I Will Greatly Rejoice In The Lord, And My Soul Shall Be Joyful In My God”.





“I Am The Immaculate Conception”.
“Ego Sum Immaculata Conceptio”.
Author: Lawrence OP on FLICKR
Illustration: PINTEREST



“Gaudens Gaudébo In Domino,
Et Exultábit Ánima  Mea In Deo Meo”.

“I Will Greatly Rejoice In The Lord,
And My Soul Shall Be Joyful In My God”.


Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.

   Volume 1.
   Advent.
      8 December.
      The Immaculate Conception of The Most Blessed Virgin.

At length, on the distant horizon, rises, with a soft and radiant light, the aurora of the Sun which has been so long desired.

The happy Mother of the Messias was to be born before the Messias, Himself; and this is the day of the Conception of Mary.

The Earth already possesses a first pledge of the Divine Mercy; The Son of Man is near at hand. Two true Israelites, Joachim and Anne, noble branches of the family of David, find their union, after a long barren-ness, made fruitful by the Divine Omnipotence.


Glory be to God, Who has been mindful of His promises, and Who deigns to announce, from the high Heavens, the end of the deluge of iniquity, by sending upon the Earth the sweet White Dove that bears the tidings of Peace !

The Feast of The Blessed Virgin’s Immaculate Conception is the most Solemn of all those which The Church Celebrates during the holy time of Advent; and if the first part of the Cycle had to offer us the Commemoration of some one of the Mysteries of Mary, there was none whose object could better harmonise with the spirit of The Church in this Mystic Season of Expectation.

Let us, then, Celebrate this Solemnity with joy; for the Conception of Mary tells us that the Birth of Jesus is not far off.


The intention of The Church, in this Feast, is not only to Celebrate the anniversary of the happy moment in which began, in the womb of the pious Anne, the life of the ever-glorious Virgin Mary; but also to honour the sublime privilege, by which Mary was preserved from the original stain, which, by a sovereign and universal decree, is contracted by all the children of Adam the very moment they are conceived in their mother’s womb.

The faith of The Catholic Church on the subject of the Conception of Mary is this: That, at the very instant when God united the Soul of Mary, which He had created, to the body which it was to animate, this ever-blessed Soul did not only not contract the stain, but was filled with an immeasurable Grace which rendered her, from that moment, the mirror of the sanctity of God, Himself, as far as this is possible to a creature.

The Church, with her infallible authority, declared, by the lips of Blessed Pope Pius IX, that this Article of Faith had been revealed by God, Himself.


The Definition was received with enthusiasm by the whole of Christendom, and the eighth of December of the year 1854 was thus made one of the most memorable days of The Church’s history.

The following is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.

Mass: Gaudens Gaudébo In Domino.
Commemoration of the Feria is made.
Creed: Is said.
Preface: Of The Blessed Virgin. “Et te in Conceptióne Immaculáta”, which is said during The Octave.

“ What Is The Immaculate Conception ? ”



“ What Is The Immaculate Conception ? ”
Available on YouTube at

Thursday 7 December 2023

The Vigil Of The Immaculate Conception Of The Blessed Virgin Mary. 7 December.


Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless otherwise stated.

Vigil of The Immaculate Conception
of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
   7 December.

Violet Vestments.



"I Am The Immaculate Conception".
"Ego Sum Immaculata Conceptio".
Author: Lawrence OP on FLICKR
Illustration: PINTEREST


Satan Has No Creativity.
The Vigil Of
The Immaculate Conception
Of The Blessed Virgin Mary.
Available on YouTube at


The Carthusian Office Of Vigils.
Available on YouTube at


The following Text is from Lawrence OP on FLICKR

Our Lady of Lourdes.

In 1858, The Immaculate Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, near Lourdes, in France, in the cavern called “de Massabielle.” When asked to describe The Lady of The Vision, Bernadette said:
“She has the appearance of a young girl of sixteen or seventeen. She is dressed in a White Robe, girdled at the waist with a Blue Ribbon, which flows down all along Her Robe. She wears upon Her head a Veil, which is also White; this Veil gives just a glimpse of Her hair and then falls down at the back below Her waist. Her feet are bare, but covered by the last folds of Her Robe, except at the point where a Yellow Rose shines upon each of them. She holds on Her right arm a Rosary of White Beads with a Chain of Gold, shining like the two Roses on Her feet.”
This Stained-Glass Window of Our Lady of Lourdes (see, below) is in Llandudno Catholic Church, Wales.



The following Text is from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.

This Vigil was, in 1879, extended by Pope Leo XIII to the whole Church.

Let us, on this day, ask The Immaculate Virgin to purify our hearts still more for tomorrow's Solemnity (Collect).

Mass: Veníte audíte.
The Gloria is not said.
Second Collect: Of The Feria.
Third Collect: Of The Holy Ghost.
Preface: Common Preface.

Saint Ambrose. Bishop. Doctor Of The Church. Feast Day 7 December.



Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.

   Volume 1.
   Advent.

      Saint Ambrose.
      Bishop.
      Doctor Of The Church.
      7 December.

This illustrious Pontiff was deservedly placed in the Calendar of The Church side by side with the glorious Bishop of Myra [Editor: Saint Nicholas].

Saint Nicholas confessed, at Nicæa, the Divinity of The Redeemer; Saint Ambrose, in his City of Milan, was the object of hatred of the Arians, and, by his invincible courage, triumphed over the enemies of Christ.

Let Ambrose, then, unite his voice, as Doctor of The Church, with that of Saint Peter Chrysologus, and Preach to the World the glories and humiliations of The Messias.


But, as Doctor of The Church, he has a special claim to our veneration; It is, that among the bright luminaries of The Latin Church, four great masters head the list of Sacred Interpreters of The Faith: Saint Gregory; Saint Augustine; Saint Jerome; and, then, our glorious Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, makes up the mystic number.

Ambrose owes his noble postion in the Calendar of The Church to the ancient custom of The Church, whereby, in the early ages, no Saint’s Feast was allowed to be kept in Lent.

The day of Ambrose’s departure from this World, and of his entrance into Heaven, was the fourth of April, which, more frequently than not, comes during Lent; so that it was requisite that the memory of his Sacred death should be solemnised on some other day, and the seventh of December naturally presented itself for such a Feast, inasmuch as it was the anniversary-day of Ambrose’s Consecration as Bishop.


But, independently of these considerations, the road which leads us to Bethlehem [Editor: “House of Bread”] could be perfumed by nothing so fragrant as this Feast of Saint Ambrose.

Does not the thought of this Saintly and amiable Bishop impress us with the image of dignity and sweetness combined, and of the strength of the Lion united with the gentleness of the Dove ?

Time removes the deepest human impressions; but the memory of Ambrose is as vivid and dear in men’s minds as though he were still among us. Who can ever forget the young, yet staid and learned Governor of Liguria and Emilia, who comes to Milan as a simple Catechumen, and finds himself forced, by the acclamations of the people, to ascend the Episcopal throne of this great City ?


And how indelibly impressed upon us are certain touching incidents of his early life ! For instance, that beautiful presage of his irresistible eloquence — the swarm of Bees coming round him as he was sleeping one day in his father’s garden, and entering into his mouth, as though they would tell us how sweet that babe’s words would be !

And the prophetic gravity with which Ambrose, when quite a boy, would hold out his hand to his mother and sister, bidding them kiss it, for that one day it would be the hand of a Bishop !

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