Not what you think.

I love this country so much!



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"In Front" - Civilisational gridlock explained

Years and years ago, I developed a theory of traffic dynamics based on a single assumption that nearly everyone shares in our society: we must all be "In Front".

It doesn't matter if that means you are simply the first person at the stop light, as long as you are in front of everyone else at the stop light. It also doesn't matter if, once you have become In Front of your immediate opponent you are now Behind the next person in the queue. This should merely spur your efforts to be In Front of those guys. Those guys don't deserve to be In Front any more than all the other people you just passed.

Apply the theory of In Front to all of modern life and you have found the source of most of our misery.



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You don't have to live like they tell you: mountain hermit edition

Eremitical life is pretty strong in Italy. There are quite a lot of official, diocesan hermits and a whole bunch more unofficial, unrecognised, hidden "lay" hermits and semi-hermits.

This is a trend that is quite visible here, where Italians are still interested in the ancient things of the Faith. Mostly things they are emphatically NOT receiving from their parishes.



My rough translation:

TG2000: Alone among the immensity of the mountains, in the silence of creation, in a baita (mountain cabin) between rock and streams, Sr. Paola Biacino, lives like this on charity, after a marriage annulment and three daughters…

Suora Paola: Here you experience just that the holy spirit is something that goes beyond beyond us, that is, every word that comes out [from you] does not. It's never your perception. This is then reach for the other, reach for something bigger than myself.

So we are only instruments. We live and try to live in the time of God, not the time of man. It’s a seeking to live on the threshold of this experience and so it’s something beautiful.

TG 2000: We are under Monviso, the king of stone. The day of the hermit unfolds in the continuous conversation with God. As a Sister Paola another 300 in Italy witnesses that in the years of chaos the words, gestures, the eyes can write the days of God.

Every night she gets up at 3 am to pray and sing, then welcome those who come to look for hope.

Suora Paola: Try [search for] everything, look for someone that listens try to relearn praying. Try to understand why in a time of movement, solitude. [Why] a person seeks and chooses life of solitude and then look for a few. Sometimes they find and sometimes one [finds] stimulus to try even more.

TG 2000: The first day, 12 years ago, someone who knocked was a friar with lunch, and this brought tears of emotion.

Here's another:



Just watch it. Don't bother too much about the translations. (If you can follow a little Italian, it helps to click on the CC.)



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Just before everything went completely to...

Late afternoon sun on the Tyrhennian, from the hills above S. Marinella 2014

Christmas eve hiking & running, enjoying my new hair.

Mike Matt and a few friends for dinner, Conclave week 2013

Winnie, before her illness. In fact, she was already showing signs, but I put it down to age. 

At home. 

The Abdicator's last day on the job: last Angelus

First sign something was wrong: it was too soon. Two days, 4 ballots. 

No s___, I was there. 

I keep thinking I should just move back to S. Marinella. But I guess you can't turn back time. 

Eye-candy: some more catafalques from around about

Via Messa in Latino blog. If anyone knows the location, let me know.

At Santissima Trinita dei Pellegrini, the FSSP parish in Rome this year.



Quite a change from the comparatively modest version in 2009.

And here's a little NLM article on how to build one in your own parish.



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Dies Irae dies illa...

Thanks long-time alert reader Louise Yvette for putting me on to this YT page. A link for which I think I'll save in the sidebar.

Here's a version of it with the words and the little squares, so you can learn it properly.



(Oh sure... it sounds great when you've got acoustics like THAT!)



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