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When our first child was due, in 1997, the date of his expected birth (though not of his actual birth) was the Second Sunday of Easter. Even though it's not his birthday, it's a day that has gained added personal significance from this fact. The day is also known as Quasimodo Sunday from the first words of the introit, "quasi modo" ("after the fashion of" or "like"):

Quasi modo geniti infantes, alleluia: rationabiles, sine dolo lac concupiscite, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Like newborn babes, alleluia, desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Or, as the King James translates it: As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word.

When I mentioned the due date to my old tutor he exclaimed with delight, "Why, then you can call him Quasimodo!" It's not a suggestion we entertained seriously, but now that I've told our son about it he seems disappointed at the missed opportunity.
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Our Lady of Sorrows

Or should that be "Sorrows of Our Lady"?

In any case, to continue the last post's theme of ravishing Vespers:


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Exaltation of the Cross

Yesterday evening I spent making Latin flashcards, including "REX / regis (m.) king". And to help the morphology sink in, a dose of Vespers for today:


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Top 100 Hymns

A link from Facebook took me to a blog where I read about a project on another blog to gather a fairly random list of people's favourite hymns. The BBC did this a few years ago and came out with a top 10 of "the nation's favourite hymns" that looked like this:

1. How Great Thou Art
2. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
3. The Day Thou Gavest
4. Be Thou My Vision
5. Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
6. Be Still, For The Presence Of The Lord
7. Make Me A Channel
8. Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer
9. In Christ Alone
10. Shine, Jesus, Shine

I'm not sure what my own top 10 would be, or the order of them, as thinking about it I can only whittle the list down as far as 12 (including 4 of the BBC's top 10), and that's without putting them in any order of preference:

• At the Cross Her Station Keeping
• The Lord is My Shepherd
• Be Thou My Vision
• Adeste Fideles
• Pange Lingua
• The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended
• Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
• Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer
• O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Abide With Me
• Praise My Soul the King of Heaven
• Lead, Kindly Light

Still, if I do get round to making a ranked list of 10, I'll be sure to let the lady at the blog know!
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Feast of St Patrick

And to celebrate the occasion (a day late, but better late than never), my favourite hymn (the one I sometimes sing when the hymn provided in the Shorter Morning and Evening Prayer is unknown to me - which, for morning prayer at least, is most of the time).



The lyrics were produced a hundred years ago, as an English translation of an ancient Irish hymn attributed to Dallan Forgaill. The tune is "Slane", which gives the pretext for posting it: Slane Hill is where St Patrick reputedly lit a fire to celebrate the Easter vigil, in defiance of the pagan custom which dictated that, it also being the night of a pagan festival, no fire be kindled until the king had been seen to light his on nearby Tara Hill.

The final verse of the hymn suddenly brings to mind the envoi to Hilaire Belloc's Ballade of Illegal Ornaments:

The controversy was ended by His Lordship, who wrote to the Incumbent ordering him to remove from the Church all Illegal Ornaments at once, and especially a Female Figure with a Child.

I
When that the Eternal deigned to look
On us poor folk to make us free
He chose a Maiden, whom He took
From Nazareth in Galilee;
Since when the Islands of the Sea,
The Field, the City, and the Wild
Proclaim aloud triumphantly
A Female Figure with a Child.

II
These Mysteries profoundly shook
The Reverend Doctor Leigh, D.D.,
Who therefore stuck into a Nook
(Or Niche) of his Incumbency
An Image filled with majesty
To represent the Undefiled,
The Universal Mother — She —
A Female Figure with a Child.

III
His Bishop, having read a book
Which proved as plain as plain could be
That all the Mutts had been mistook
Who talked about a Trinity
Wrote off at once to Doctor Leigh
In manner very far from mild,
And said: "Remove them instantly!
A Female Figure with a Child!"

Envoi
Prince Jesus, in mine Agony,
Permit me, broken and defiled,
Through blurred and glazing eyes to see
A Female Figure with a Child.
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Falling at the last hurdle!

But just in case there are any chance readers in Hawaii:



Yesterday I finally got round to finishing my Christmas shopping (finding DVDs of Mole and the Three Robbers in the bookshop of the Palais des Beaux Arts), with the shops and streets in the city centre a jostling mass, pretty much shoulder to shoulder in places. In the evening there was a final Taizé meeting from 8 till after 11 (this is my excuse for being 14 hours late with the final O Antiphon).
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Tonight, and then tomorrow night, and then it's Xmas Eve

Oh and there's a very interesting post about confession here.
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O Oriens

Only two more days before Christmas Eve. I was surprised we didn't have "O Come, O Come Emanuel" in Mass this morning. And it's the last shopping Sunday before Christmas, the news reporting that the shops were hell. Not having done any shopping today, I'm willing to take their word for it (now, if the Post Office had Sunday opening I'd have been tempted to take the occasion to post our Christmas cards). For three hours this afternoon I was in a general informational meeting in the basilica of the Sacred Heart in Brussels, together with hundreds of other local organizers for the Taizé pilgrimage (one week to go!) It seems we can expect Poles, Croats and Romanians in our parish. The next parish along will be getting Poles, Portuguese, Belorussians, Italians, Lithuanians and Serbs; and Sint Martinus will have Poles, Germans and Hungarians. I'm not sure what parish will end up with Poles, Poles, Poles, Poles and Poles. In any case the whole has a rather Eastern theme (suitable for today).
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Two days gone at once ...

or so it feels like. Is Christmas some sort of black hole, that bends time as you get closer to it? So today I'll post early, to avoid the rush:



Last night, on the way to a Taizé preparation meeting in the next parish along, I was breathalyzed for the first time ever, which was rather entertaining (especially the way the police officer stood fidgeting with his hi-tech breathalyzer, apologetically saying "It has to warm up for a couple of minutes first.") I was late for the meeting, but I'd be lying if I put it down entirely to the police. Yesterday was just not an organized day.
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Who could believe that 24 hours is such a short time?

I still haven't even posted my Christmas cards yet ...


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I can't believe how unprepared we are for Xmas

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The countdown to Christmas...

has now begun in earnest:



And there was me wondering why "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" was going through my head all morning!
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