Carmel Day in Belfast
My parish priest on Sunday evening started giving me this whole spiel about traffic chaos - I thought he was talking about The Irish Open which was held just down the road from Drogheda but then he mentioned the relics and I realised the hand was being taken out of me.
The "big Mass" on Saturday, Feast of St Simon Stock, was covered rather nicely by Poetry, Prayer and Praise including some fine photos which she managed to take with not a single person visible.
The church was packed beyond capacity with people standing and chairs being carried in. I had to ask a girl in crutches to move to get a seat for the bishop!
I suspect my PP was right and it was the relics and not the celebration or profession of new members that drew the crowd. Still, good to get some visibility and a small percentage of the crowd may become members. We only want a couple each year. I can see how hard it is for orders when they have no one or only one in formation – becomes impossible.
Our Carmelite hymn got its first public performance and seemed to work well. Though one lady told me she could have done without the Elijah verse. We, however, could not. We sang all six verses as you have to for it to work as the first and last verses are about Our Lady and each other verse about
We had some unusual elements in our service. For the first time we used the full large scapular as worn by the nuns and friars, as I think it serves as a better sign of the habit. I can understand the small scapular for ordinary use under the clothes, and the large one, but the inbetween one about A4 size leaves me cold - just think it looks silly, like one of those signs people caught collaborating were made to wear.
We also introduced the use of a cross of profession. The ritual provides for the use of a symbol (other than scapular or gospels or Constitutions) during profession so the cross is a good idea. We made up a prayer to go with it - hopefully the Sacred Congregation for Divine Liturgy or whatever it calls itself these days won't mind:
Celebrant: My sister, receive this cross of profession as a sign of your membership. The cross is at the heart of
In : Carmel
Tags: "belfast" "secular order" "st simon stock"
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Catholic, Carmelite, Husband, Father, Reader of all sorts of books, Writer of occasional letters, Viewer of lots of TV and movies, Lover of tea, Hater of coffee. Anything I write is my own opionion and is not intended to represent the views of any organisation with which I have a connection. You can email me at "blog at live.ie" (replace the "at" with @). Don't be shy. To comment, click on the title of post. You have to include a name and email but fake ones work fine. Make sure there's an @ in the email.
