THE LITURGICAL YEAR, but the Very Rev. Dom Posper Gueranger

As someone who badly misses the old card catalogues of my remote youth, I may easily be known as someone frequently distracted, often off task, and occasionally oblivious to something important that is.... in another car on my train of thought, (a train most susceptible to accidental uncoupling....)

Did I know that Gueranger's great work was available online? (I think I downloaded a kindle edition once that proved was not very useful because of some quirk or other, and this format is more useful to me.)
I do put a bit more effort into talking about the liturgical year with my CCD charges than I recall anyone ever doing with me, because the idea of seasons, and the Both/And rhythms of Catholic life seem to strike a chord with several of them. (Well, who's not going to like the idea of feasting before the Lenten fast, especially when it means chocolate?)

I've only ever read bits and pieces of it, always thought i should, and now it would be for pure love of knowledge of the subject since i am not nor probably ever shall again be charged with parish music direction.
So should I stop wanting actual books?
 I'm trying to divest myself of music, articles, books, etc. that were very hard found and acquired, (in some case, thank you eBay, hard won,) just a few years ago, but now virtually blooming, to be had for the plucking.

That's too many silly metaphors trains and flowers, and I digress... anyway, if I ever wanted it, there it is -
Let me be wise, let me fill up that harmony!

Liturgical prayer would soon become powerless were the faithful not to take a real share in it, or at least not to associate themselves to it in heart. It can heal and save the world, but only on the condition that it be understood. Be wise, then, ye children of the Catholic Church, and obtain that largeness of heart which will make you pray the prayer of your mother. Come, and by your share in it fill up that harmony which is so sweet to the ear of God.

St Agnes and Other Child Martyrs

As we celebrate the memorial of St Agnes of it is a fine thing to contemplate the bravery and zeal of which the young may be capable.

Our priest this morning talked about how very little is known with any certainty of some of the early Christian martyrs, and how there have been times when  sensible Catholic were tempted to dismiss not just the details, but their entire stories as myth. One supposed fact clearly mitigating against the truth of Agnes's cult was here extreme youth when she was executed.

After all, he mused, cocking an eyebrow ironically, who would kill a child over religion?

“It was the first day of the Feast of Thin Bread”

Over at Corpus Christi Watershed, Fr. David Friel has a good article enumerating just is wrong with Children's Liturgy of the Word, and the Lectionary for Masses with Children, and their use (and as far as I am concerned, what is wrong with the Directory for Masses with Children all the hoopla that has proceeded from it .)

At my old parish, his first one, The corny send-off rituals & banal music that accompany the children’s exit,  was the only one I had any control over, and I did take care of it right away, replacing the circus-worthy ditty that nobody sang anyway, with  a hymn about gathering for the Word, which actually, (oh, horrors!!!!!!) referenced the Fear of the Lord.

But seriously, to make my point I have only ever needed to ask this:

Has ANYONE, in the entire history of our country ever been so stupid as to think thought that kindergartners, or even pre-schoolers needed to be taught to say,

"I promise, honest! to always be on the same side as my 

country's flag and to my county, which has a fair way of 

deciding things, one place that can't come apart, where 

everybody can pretty much do what they want within reason, 

and we all get a square deal,"

?

NO!

We teach them,

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of 

America and to the Republic for which it stands, one 

nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

(I left out "under God" since it was an addition, AFAIK, and so that you would know this is me being curmudgeonly, and hasn't really anything to do with religion )

Although they have no idea whatever of the meaning of "allegiance," for instance, we teach them the pledge as it is, and they learn the words by heart, (in every sense of the word, hopefully,) and eventually come to understand them, (also, now that I think of it, hopefully.)

Feast of Thin Bread.... sheesh. Could have been worse, could have been "Crispy Bread Holiday," I guess.