Lowdenclear and I were in her hometown of Downpatrick last weekend. It's not a trip we can make that often given that we have a very busy life in Dublin and are, please God, about to welcome our first bambina toward the end of August. However her folks were just back from their holidays so we made the trip and did the round of relatives, catching up on everyone's news and even getting lots of second-hand baby things. We were not particularly looking forward to Mass in St Patrick's, the beautiful but curious L-shaped Church that stands high above the town. Our experiences there before have been more "challenging" than edifying. This time was different. The priest was composed, reverent and dignified throughout. No unnecessary theatrics, just Mass in the Ordinary Form, by the book. While the Mass is the Mass, and we are obliged to go, it certainly makes it much easier when the priest shows an appreciation of the tremendous Mystery that he is engaged in.
What made it even better was the sermon. It started with a mention of the Holy Father's recent trip to the Holy Land and the distortions of it in the Main Stream Media. It then moved on to the black lie about Pius XII's so-called "silence" about the Shoah. (Pius' refusal to bless "anyone's Kalashnikovs" was also mentioned; the anachronism aside, making a point like that in South Down is no harm at all.) It ended with a warning about believing all the half-truths and downright lies that the MSM would foist on us. Really excellent stuff! Thank God for this young priest and others like him; liturgically reverent and homiletically well-informed and clear. Ad multos annos!
