Author: pbw

Reading about Fatima, I noticed a theme that recurred in various descriptions of the miracle of the sun.

O Seculo (a pro-government, anti-clerical, Lisbon paper):

From the road, where the vehicles were parked and where hundreds of people who had not dared to brave the mud were congregated, one could see the immense multitude turn toward the sun, which appeared free from clouds and in its zenith. It looked like a plaque of dull silver, and it was possible to look at it without the least discomfort. It might have been an eclipse which was taking place.

Continue reading “Those who have eyes to see”

How long is Lent? It’s something that has puzzled me, because the period from Ash Wednesday to Easter Saturday, inclusive, is six weeks and four days; 46 days. Lent, though, is supposed to be a forty day fast, is it not?

On Ash Wednesday, I heard that the period covered forty fast days and six Sundays, which made sense. The Catholic Encyclopaedia online, in its article on Lent, notes that at the time of Gregory the Great (590-604) Lent consisted of six weeks of six fast days, and only later was this period extended to Ash Wednesday to bring the number of fast days to forty. In earlier times, in Jerusalem, both Saturday and Sunday were exempt from fasting, and Lent was observed over eight weeks.

The same article, in discussing the nature of the fast, gives an insight into two Easter customs: Easter eggs and the pancakes of Shrove, or Pancake, Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. What food is, or was, prohibited in Lent? In particular, were lacticinia, essentially dairy foods and eggs, allowed? As the practices of Lent developed, lacticinia came to be prohibited. However, exceptions could be made when associated with charitable works. Such dispensations were known in Germany as Butterbriefe, and one of the spires of Rouen cathedral was once called the Butter Tower. Hence also, the feast of butter and eggs on Pancake Tuesday, and the celebratory gifts of eggs at the breaking of the fast.

Not having a TV spares me many horrors, and gives me more time to waste in other ways: and it means that occasional small gems pass by me unseen. Not too long ago, television was the most ephemeral of media, with programs broadcast once and relegated to a spool of tape in an internal archive, eventually to be erased, destroyed or discarded. The internet and massive digital storage systems have changed all that.

On Shrove Tuesday, Andrew Bolt mentioned, in amongst all of the Labor Party leadership frenzy, the Australian Story broadcast on the ABC the previous night. Called “Mary and Me,” it is the story of Kath Evans, whose recovery from advanced and metastasised lung cancer was the second miracle required by the Catholic Church for the canonisation of the then Blessed Mary McKillop. Continue reading “Mary McKillop and Kath”

It’s 10:22pm on Ash Wednesday, and Lent hasn’t got off to a flying start. Shrove Tuesday was a black day indeed. Jen was very distressed—the cause is immaterial—and instead of giving the sympathy and support she might expect, I opened the cranky valve and vented, loudly and at length.

One nurses a grievance so that it can grow big and strong, and one day strike out on its own in the wide world. On that day one experiences a momentary surge of delight; the righteous release of pent-up bile in a welter of abandonment. Then the sanity comes flooding back in. Does this sound familiar? Continue reading “Ash Wednesday”