Best wishes and prayers from the holy house of Loreto on the feast day. A view of the shrine surrounding and supporting the holy house chapel within the Basilica.
Day begins with holy Mass at an altar in the grotto beneath the basilica
The facade of the Basilica
A view of the shrine surrounding the holy house.
Our Lady of Loreto in the holy house. May she bless and protect you and your families through the grace of her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Santuario di San Leopoldo. “Chiuso per riposo”, so we prayed outside.
Side altar in the Basilica del Santo. In Padova everyone knows you intend St Anthony when you address him as “il Santo”. He dominates the spiritual landscape like no other.
The tomb of Saint Anthony
Rear side of the tomb. Pilgrims pray and touch the marble sarcophagus to beg his intercession.
High altar of the basilica
Father Kramer, FSSP offers high Mass for the solemnity at San Simone Piccola. The young members of the schola and choir visible in background.
Sacristy altar where I offered low Mass.
With sacristan Stephen after his stay at oratory in Wales.
Auguri di una buona festa della Vergine Maria Immacolata da Venezia!
Il corpo di Santa Lucia
Assumption by Tiziano in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari
Antique bas relief of Madonna and child in the capuchin convento.
Cimabue style crucifix in Church of San Luca, Verona.
La porta vecchia di Verona with swallowtail crenellations and rare clock set in the wall above the gates.
How might St Paul, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Catholic Church come together in a story set at the end of 2022? They might offer themselves as useful interpretative devices as the story of what is happening in the Church in the West today continues to unravel.
Some commentators who have been following my journey and reading my work have taken an interest in the fact that I have withdrawn my application to be ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church, and wondered why. The dynamics that drove the story might have a wider application than just us.
In my critique of the heterodoxy of developing Feminism and its promotion of relativism and all things gay, I found myself on a journey that left an increasingly compromised Anglicanism and went into the Roman Catholic Church - along with very many others.
There are two ways of engaging with this: looking back or looking forward. Let's not look back; this is not the moment to re-hash Calvin, Zwingli and Luther. Things have moved on. Even in the Christian world.
Imagine for a moment the Reformers of the Sixteenth century ignoring what was going on in their day, and being fixated with, say, the Synod of Brixen 1080. Then Henry IV of Germany and Pope Gregory VII were squabbling over an investiture controversy. Would you still fight about this over 500 years later? "Forget the reforms of 1519 Martin, let's do a rerun of that seminal struggle in 1080. Where exactly do you stand on that one?"
It is more constructive to look forward instead and deal with the issues we face today.
Today the Church throughout the Western world is facing cancellation. They may not be collecting the lions yet, but they are certainly cancelling Christians at work and in the public square. Christians are even being cancelled in the Church.
Read the rest: https://christiantoday.com/article/the.choice.to.the.church.speak.up.or.keep.your.head.down/139535.htm
