Tuesday 28 August 2012

St. Ninian's annual pilgrimage 26 Aug 2012

COMMENT: SPOTLIGHT ON...

----- Forwarded Message -----

Sunday, 26 August 2012

St. Ninian Cave Whithorn Annual Pilgrimage 26 August 2012

From: Anne Marie M...
To: Donald ....
Sent: Monday, 27 August 2012, 22:34
Subject: 
Mass - St Ninian's Cave 

I thought you might like these pictures
Anne Marie
Sent from my iPhone




Saint Ninian's cave has long been a special place for pilgrims. Scotland's first saint
with the date 397AD celebrated as the beginning of his mission of his mission
to his people. 

Dear Anne Marie,
Thank you for your SPOTLIGHT-ON pictures
of the Diocesan Pilgrimage 2012.
Account -story...?

1997
The National Pilgrimage for us was a multiple-story.
1.      It was the 16th Centenary of St. Ninian, 1997.
2.      7 or 8 of Nunraw travelled to the celebration..
3.      The Presbytery of the Wigton Church welcomed to hospitality overnight.
4.      Early morning, on the drive, BBC Radio had the NEWS, “DianaPrincess of Wales, is killed after her car crashes in a Paris underpass - the driver and her friend Dodi Fayed are also dead”, Spoken by Cardinal Winning.
5.     That ‘story’ remains with us and the memory of Princess Diana.
ON GOING ... 
6.     Diana, Princess of Wales - 15th Anniversary.
Yours ...
Donald  

Whithorn
1. Audiovisual Theatre - The audio visual history of Whithorn narrated by Russell Hunter.
2. Through the Ages Exhibition - with finds from over a century of archaeology in Scotland's oldest Christian town.
3. Discovery Centre - The Discovery Centre with 3-dimensional jigsaw and hands-on exhibits.
4. Dig Site - Access to the dig site now restored to the foundation level of the Northumbrian Monastery.
5. Cathedral Ruins - The ruined nave of the Medieval Cathedral and crypts now in the care of Historic Scotland.
6. Museum and Stones - the Historic Scotland Museum with the finest collection of early Christian stones in Scotland.
7. Ninian Gallery - The Ninian Gallery offers a programme of temporary exhibitions.

Monday 27 August 2012

St. Monica 'the way you love Me while you work'

 At the Night Office Second Reading, I caught up the story of Monica's own purpose. She pursued Augustine to her goal that her son would return to the faith.
That raises my question.
How come the Lord gave Monica not the likes of gifts of Augustine?
The outstanding vocation of Monica was her own special grace and calling. . .
 "While I was digging around the hydrangeas.

 "Be one with Me in My toil as a carpenter. It is not what you do that matters, but the way you love Me while you work. And love is oneness. Give Me the spectacle of a soul engulfed in its Saviour, and this will be joy, My joy." As the love example fromYOU ANDi of Gabriel Bossis.
  

 Monica was distressed to learn that her son had accepted the Manichean heresy and was living an immoral life. For a while, she refused to let him eat or sleep in her house. Then one night she had a vision that assured her Augustine would return to the faith. From that time on she stayed close to her son, praying and fasting for him. In fact, she often stayed much closer than Augustine wanted.
When he was 29, Augustine decided to go to Rome to teach rhetoric. Monica was determined to go along. One night he told his mother that he was going to the dock to say goodbye to a friend. Instead, he set sail for Rome. Monica was heartbroken when she learned of Augustine’s trick, but she still followed him. She arrived in Rome only to find that he had left for Milan. Although travel was difficult, Monica pursued him to Milan.


http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/Saint.aspx?id=1120#tagAudio

August 27
St. Monica
(322?-387)


The circumstances of St. Monica’s life could have made her a nagging wife, a bitter daughter-in-law and a despairing parent, yet she did not give way to any of these temptations. Although she was a Christian, her parents gave her in marriage to a pagan, Patricius, who lived in her hometown of Tagaste in North Africa. Patricius had some redeeming features, but he had a violent temper and was licentious. Monica also had to bear with a cantankerous mother-in-law who lived in her home. Patricius criticized his wife because of her charity and piety, but always respected her. Monica’s prayers and example finally won her husband and mother-in-law to Christianity. Her husband died in 371, one year after his baptism.

Sunday 26 August 2012

St. Ninian Cave Whithorn Annual Pilgrimage 26 August 2012

Saint Ninian's cave has long been a special place for pilgrims.  Traditionally associated with Saint Ninian himself, it is unclear whether he ever came to the cave.


St. Ninian's Cave
   
The cave lies on the south coast of the Machars of Galloway, south-west of Whithorn. 
It is a natural cleft in the sea cliffs and is about 7m long and 3m high. Rock falls may have made it smaller than it would have been when medieval pilgrims visited.
During summer, hundreds of pilgrims may have travelled to the cave.
It is not entirely clear what happened when the pilgrims arrived at the cave. There may have been a system for controlling access like at Saint Brendan’s Cave on Eileach an Naoimh off the Argyll coast, where pilgrims pass through a series of outer chapels and passageways before reaching the cave.


Archaeological discoveries in the cave
Our understanding of Saint Ninian’s Cave comes from a series of remarkable archaeological discoveries. 
Excavations in the 1880s revealed boulders and loose slabs of stone carved with crosses and other designs. Other crosses had already been found carved into the cave walls. 
The carvings date mainly to the 700s and 800s, although one stone might have been carved around 1600. Many are thought to be the work of pilgrims, or perhaps monks from Whithorn occupying the cave as a place of retreat. These stones are now displayed in the Whithorn Priory Museum. 
Modern Pilgrims

Saint Ninian’s cave remains an important place for pilgrims.
Diocesan-Pilgrimage
These include individual pilgrims making their own personal journeys and large pilgrimages organised every year by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Galloway. 
Modern-day pilgrims often leave pebbles from the beach marked with crosses inside the cave, along with offerings of coins placed into crevices in the rock. 

St Ninian Whithorn
Google
About 34,900 results (0.26 seconds) 
www.whithorn.com/saint-ninian.htm
Saint Ninian, Scotland's first Saint - The Whithorn Trust was established in 1986 as an independent Trust to explore the archaeology and history of Whithorn and ...


At the St. Ninian Pilgrimage we at the News of Princess Diana
news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/31/.../2510615.stm
DianaPrincess of Wales, is killed after her car crashes in a Paris underpass - the driver and her friend Dodi Fayed are also dead.
31 August 1997: Princess Diana dies in Paris crash
Diana, Princess of Wales, has died after a car crash in Paris.


Getting to
the Cave
Sign to Saint Ninian's Cave
St Ninian's Cave is located 3 miles (5 km) south-west of Whithorn.

From Dumfries follow the A75 to Newton Stewart, then follow the A714/ A746 for Whithorn. A car park is located to the left side of the minor road just before Kidsdale Farm (NX433366).

From the car park, follow the direction sign for St Ninian's Cave.


Walk through the wooded glen, then follow the burnside path to the pebbles of Port Castle Bay. Turn right at the sign for St Ninian' s Cave. The cave's entrance sits by the seashore.  Look along the beach and you will see the cave entrance.

Strong footwear is recommended during wet weather.

Saturday 25 August 2012

Fr. Edward - "God himself praised himself, and because he could well praise himself, man therefore learned how he could praise him.”

Sacristan - Altar flowers.
Dear Fr. Edward, 
Thank you for your Email "Subject: Some more lines."
At Vespers the first  Psalm was from “Exaltabo te. Deus meus Rex” (Psalm 144)    
And hence our astonishment from your "lines of contemplation".

In our background back home
It was the day of the Garvald Village FLOWER SHOW.
The weather was of dense fog, the worst known in early morning.
The Abbot attended.
Later, some of the benefits from the Show added to the tea time of the monks.
Of most interest to the Sacristan was the bouquet of PRIZE ROSES from good friend Dorothy. 
Some pictures fill up wheels turning in our hearts.
In Dno.
Donald
+ + +


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: edward b...
To: Donald ... 
Sent: Saturday, 25 August 2012, 15:39
Subject: Some more lines
Dear Father Donald,
I do not know whether this will interest you at all. 
I was   very struck with the idea of God praising God!
What insight! 
What purity of soul to perceive this! 
And please a copy for H ...
Blessings  in Domino
fr Edward O.P.


“Exaltabo te. Deus meus Rex” (Psalm 144)

Like a privileged man fresh from the experience
of being elevated, concentrated, purged,
into a contemplation of exceptional intensity
and transforming purity,
Augustine begins his sermon
with a power to convince without effort or questioning
his congregation:
“I have dared to praise the Lord with you;”
he finds in himself the urge to concentrate his spirit
in all his hearers in the sure trust
that his received fire will communicate itself to them.
So experiencing in the act of communicating it
he offers it with a safeguard:
“and since [the Lord] deigns to concede this
so that the praise which we are going to offer him
might have an ordering
lest there be something offensive to the one who praises,
it is better that we seek a way of praising
from the Scriptures of God
so that we do not stray from the path
to the right or left.
For I have the boldness to say to your collective charity,
so that God may be appropriately praised by man
God himself praised himself,
and because he could well praise himself,
man therefore learned how he could praise him.”

This passage I learned from the opening of an Apostolic Constitution
of Pope Saint Pius X.    
The quotation was among others equally authoritative, offering encouragement,
from the beginning of his Apostolic Constitution, Divino Afflatu, of 1911.
This was the true divine wisdom of the Pope acknowledged in his Collect.
It raises him from the secular encirclement of the Vatican
left by Garibaldi and Cavour.
from the disappointment of others at his election Conclave,
from the tiresomeness of irrelevant “modernism”
which time's progress soon ages
with its pressure of pastness,
from the march to Europe's brutal “civil war” of three years later.

A part of a group of gestures to give the Church a higher and purer worship
aligned with the profundity and reach of the Fathers
and later theologians.
A gesture of profound defiance aimed at the Godlessness
of the revolution begun in France
ending in the tyranny of Napoleon,
backed up by deceptive, never universally defined reason:
too prone to use the argument of bloodshed charged with envy.

These words can be applied at two depth-levels.

The first insight, deep-rooted in Christian culture, of the union in the Triune God
of the total and equal praise of
equal totally self-communicating Persons
offered to and from each,
timelessly, spacelessly,
beyond space-time,
where no relational opposition reigns.
An eternal lynch-pin where creation's all is
contained by a timeless, spaceless
self-balance of totality in a unity-totality
as one in se,
if distinguishable within this unity-totality
by Personal proceedings, yet all-containing and self-containing in identity;
participated by the angelic spirits as invisible and powerful,
as also by material's lower status, its equivalence with electro-magnetic energy
established a hundred years ago,
before atomic and sub-atomic force-bearers were located and identified.
In this space-time worship persists, when man can embrace the appearance
of configurations of matter-energy,
what his spirit demands – its guarantee of order, no matter what the depth.
His presence to self-praise and in self-praise of God
cannot be rejected by an act of human will;
it retains the cosmic all in a totality of changing equilibrium.
Essential stability and serial instances:
the former measured by self-authenticating theophany: 
Nature's highest because divine which shows itself in worship-cultus as realest, prompting the human mind to rise in humility and always to return.

Self-knowing is not high enough, nor tight enough to satisfy the capacity of man.
Self-praise in the divine alone is great enough and pure enough.
Not the all.
But what contains the all –
as one great timelessness and spacelessness.
Why do we resist what's most natural?
Stykkishólmur
21 August 2012


Friday 24 August 2012

COMMENT: HE AND i "I am the Host. You are the monstrance."

Thank you, William,
The contacts increase regarding the search of COPIES of the Book.
Following your Amazon find and source, we have another to send for a Sister in the Philippines.
Donald
PS. The task of proofing the Online version of "HE AND I" is a challenge. In spite of scanning by copy%paste there are skips. I wanted the random quote of 1940 March 29 shows the gap. See below.
Yours .. Donald


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: William W...
To: Fr Donald ...
Sent: Thursday, 23 August 2012, 20:21
Subject: [Blog] HE AND i

Dear Father Donald,
He and I....  I have been gradually trying to edit (format, align, etc) the 'pirate' copy of the text that I 'grabbed' off the internet link (albeit incomplete - any little part valued), with three emotions: vexation at my editorial progress, absorption (yet toiling with frustration owing to the distraction of editing), and guilt ("but I shouldn't be doing this"!). This evening I pasted the ISBN number into Amazon in a moment of despair, and there-and-behold three UK sellers, each with a copy! I took the first one at (£14.75). I took the ISB number from the weblink copy: ISBN 2-89039-807-2.
This wonderful book, through your introduction, has become daily a delight to ponder- and soon! without the textual frustration (and sense of guilt).
Thank you indeed for such a companion spirit.
with my love in Our Lord,
William
PS. eg - this one entry has held me and searched me whenever in company, especially after receiving the Blessed Sacrament:
1937
 
YOU AND i
May 19 Paris. 
In the 'metro'.
"I am the Host. You are the monstrance. The golden rays are the blessings I give through you."

From the PROOFING   

March 29  – 1940
In the country. In the great hall: "Perhaps I talk to You too familiarly?" 
"But since we are on family terms nothing could give Me greater pleasure. One who understands My desire opens his heart at all times. I have so much love for a soul that its faintest call finds an echo in Me. Don't be afraid of expressing yourself. Put your mouth to My ear. I'm listening."

While I was digging around the hydrangeas.
 "Be one with Me in My toil as a carpenter. It is not what you do that matters, but the way you love Me while you work. And love is oneness. Give Me the spectacle of a soul engulfed in its Saviour, and this will be joy, My joy."

In a country church, seeing that I was making no progress, I said, "Lord, I've come to the end of looking after myself, so I'm putting myself entirely in Your hands".
 "If you only knew what a joy it is for Me to count for something in a life at last. I can make a new woman of you.""When you were little you wanted someone to take your hand when you crossed the street. Ask Me often to take your hand, because you are always little. Don't ever think that you can do anything good without Me."

COMMENT : Assumption - Ephesus encounter


  
The House of Mary at the top of a hill in Ephesus
Hi, Christina,
Thank you.
Interesting from your memories of your Holy Places pilgrimage.
We have to learn more of your journey.....
In the footsteps of St. Paul's path, the visions of Bl. Anna-Katherina Emmerich  ...
Donald
PS. Catholic Digest  http://www.catholicdigest.com/articles/travel/no_sub_ministry/2010/01-14/a-visit-to-the-virgin-marys-house 
YouTube
http://www.spiritualtravels.info/articles-2/asia/turkey/holy-sites-in-ephesus-turkey/the-house-of-the-virgin-mary-at-ephesus/ 
At Mary's House: http://srmarie-lorraine.blogspot.co.uk/

Mary and the Muslim World: Is She the Key to Evangelization ...

blog.adw.org/.../mary-and-the-muslim-world-is-she-the-key-to-...
3 Jan 2011 – I have often heard that Muslims hold our Blessed Mother Mary in high regard. ... The young husband was so much in love with her that he changed the name of .... But our Muslim friends are also very devout and pray five times daily, dress ...Pope Benedict XVI, Papal Homily at “Mary's House” in Ephesus, ...
Ephesus House The exterior view
of the restored house, now serving as a chapel.
----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Christina ...
To: Donald....
Sent: Sunday, 19 August 2012, 12:33
Subject: Ephesus

Dear Donald,
Variety is the spice of life and your emails, Don, excell in this.
Your Assumption email was interesting and reminded me of my visit to 'Mary's house’
where I saw many devout Muslim families praying and placing their petitions at her shrine,
if you could call it that!
Lots of love ....
Xris