Reading Fr Hunwicke

I am always sorry when I realize I have forgot to check in on Liturgical Notes, that is, Father Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment, in some time, but then delighted because there is so much to read.

And some of it is even within my understanding!!!!!

Anyway, some thoughts of his connecting John the Baptizer, (who came up with that silly sounding translation, which we heard for a while?) and Synods  and bishops and what a jolly thing it is letting bygones be bygones:

Off with his head?

As History and S John Paul II both teach, the Rosary has been/is a flexible devotion. I sometimes recall my great Patron by saying these decades: The Annunciation to Zachary; the Visitation; the Nativity of S John Baptist; the Baptism of Christ; and the Decollation of S John Baptist.

In this delightfully hypersynodical age, what a very topical festival today's commemoration is. How sad it never occurred to S John Baptist to make clear to Herod and Herodias that all would be tickety boo about their interesting and fulfilling 'union' if only they performed an episcopally-authorised 'Penitential Path'.

Anyway, the Good News is that nobody has decapitated Cardinal Marx.