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Saturday, July 5, 2008

A Pillar of Fire

Our annual bonfire and barbeque in honour of St. John the Baptist was this year, for various reasons, transferred to the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. It was very successful and there was a good turn out, despite the rain and wind!

Mr John Friel, the first member of our faithful on Stronsay, was asked to do the honours and light the fire.

Br. Wolf Maria C.SS.R. assists with getting it going.

With the fire blazing, Rev. Fr. Michael Mary, C.SS.R. begins the blessing for a fire from the Roman Ritual.

Father incenses the fire. Already at this distance the heat is very intense.

A pillar of fire.

Finally the tower collapses.

Friday, July 4, 2008

#118 -- Chance Encounter

Write about a chance encounter you've had with an old friend or flame, or perhaps with a stranger -- or even a celebrity. Or, you might imagine this: if you were to go into a convenience store tonight to buy something, who, of all people on Earth, would you want to have a chance encounter with? And sure, they can be dead or imaginary too.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Canonical Good Standing

1 July, 2008
Feast of the Precious Blood

My dear friends,

I am happy to inform you that last June 18th, before Cardinal Castrillon and the members of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei in Rome, I humbly petitioned the Holy See on my own behalf and on behalf of the monastery council for our priestly suspensions to be lifted.

On June 26th I received word that the Holy See had granted our petition. All canonical censures have been lifted.

Our community now truly rejoices in undisputed and peaceful posession of Communion with the Holy See because our priests are now in canonical good standing.

We are very grateful to our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI for issuing, last July, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum which called us to come into undisputed and peaceful Communion with him.

Now we have that undisputed communion! It is a pearl of great price; a treasure hidden in the field; a sweetness that cannot be imagined by those who have not tasted it or who have not known it, now for many years. Its value cannot be fully expressed in earthly language and therefore we hope that all traditional priests who have not yet done so, will answer Pope Benedict's call to enjoy the grace of peaceful and undisputed communion with him. Believe us, the price to pay is nothing; even all the angry voices that have shouted against us and calumniated us are as nothing when weighed in the scales against undisputed communion with the Vicar of Christ; others have died for it; what are raucous voices?

We publicly thank all those souls who have prayed for us over the last months; some of you have truly stormed heaven for us. You have kept us afloat. We are deeply grateful. Especially we thank that priest who was unknown to us, until June 16th when he wrote in fraternal support. Where did he come from? Why us? But he told us of the number of Masses, Offices, prayers and sacrifices he had personally said for us; he had also enlisted the prayers of contemplatives and Third Order societies and had a great number of people fervently praying for us with an abundance of prayers. We were amazed! Thank you Father! Thank you also to that brave person who, so kindly wrote to us to say that if he said any more prayers for us he would be floating! What wonderful people! Thank you!

Looking to the future, the next stage will be to have our community canonically erected. So please, dear friends, keep praying for us, there will be many crosses to bear; but they will be yokes sweetened by the grace of these last days.

We assure you all of our very best wishes.
Your devoted servant,

Fr. Michael Mary, C.SS.R.
Vicar General

Thursday, June 26, 2008

#117 - Vision

The prompt for this week is: vision. You can go lots of different places with this one, so hopefully it will stretch your writing a little! Have a great weekend!

Sunday, June 22, 2008

filling a hole

The constant action of the water against the sea walls of Papa Stronsay has caused holes to open up in the concrete, and if nothing is done about it a whole section of wall could fall down. Therefore the community worked yesterday to close up the hole. There were only two periods in the day when the tide was out far enough to enable the work to be carried out, so we had to work swiftly. It was a great success.

The Shutter on the outside of the wall had been set in place while the tide was out in the morning. However the tide was too far in to allow us to put the inside shutter in place, so it had to wait until the late afternoon, when the tide was out once again.

Br. Magdala Maria, C.SS.R. empties bags of cement into the tractor-mounted concrete mixer.

The mixed concrete has to be brought to the wall in wheelbarrows, as the tractor cannot get close enough.

The inner shutter is lowered into position with the JCB…

…and then secured in place by the brothers.

Concrete is poured in the gap between the shuttering.

Br. Wolf Maria, C.SS.R. works on the reinforcing rods.

The fresh concrete is vibrated using this vibrating tool to ensure that it has no air bubbles in it and that it is as compact as possible, to give it maximum strength.

All done. Once the concrete has dried, the shutters can be removed, the hole in the ground covered over and the wall will once again ensure the safety of Papa Stronsay against the never-ending onslaught of the sea.