"Like the Dewfall"

In the Second Eucharistic Prayer, the priest calls on the Lord to "Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ."  One does not have to be a fan of the Second Eucharistic Prayer, or even of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite, to appreciate this beautiful image, pregnant with biblical allusions.    

Consider today's readings.  In the Old Testament reading we hear the Israelites complaining they have only manna to eat and we learn that:

"At night, when the dew fell upon the camp, the manna also fell." (Numbers, 11:9)

In the gospel reading, Jesus feeds the five thousand (not to mention the women and children) with the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.  Christ blessed the bread, the manna from Heaven, and fed His people.  Thus we saw how we come to be fed "the bread of angels."  That last phrase is from St. Thomas Aquinas' Lauda Sion Salvatorem, the sequence for Corpus Christi.

How often do we long for the "meat," and the "fish we used to eat without cost in Egypt, and the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic" (Numbers, 11:5) rather than the bread of angels?  Are we sometimes like those Philippians whom Paul tearfully bemoaned, whose "god is their belly?" (Philippians, 3:19)?

The Second Eucharistic Prayer is based on the second century Apostolic Conventions of St. Hyppolytus and Aquinas' Corpus Christi liturgy is one of the crowning achievements of Western civilization.  Hyppolytus was the first anti-pope, but was reconciled to Pope St. Pontian when both were martyred by their exile to the salt mines of Sardinia.  Thomas Aquinas, theologian, liturgist, and mystic, is called "the Angelic Doctor."

Is Tommorrow Is Fast Day #1 In England and Wales

Meatless Fridays are back (in England at least.)  Mark Davies, the Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury, wrote his flock that:

"From Friday this week, the Bishops of England and Wales have restored the practice of abstinence from meat every Friday. We are familiar with this act of penance on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday but now it is extended to every Friday other than Feast Days like Christmas Day.

"For a number of years we have been asked to choose our own act of self-denial on Fridays to mark the day on which Our Lord gave His life for us. But we know this obligation has in practice been often forgotten. So abstinence from meat each Friday (and for those who do not eat meat, abstinence from some other food) will become a weekly reminder that we are a people called to penance and to conversion of life together. It will become a small but significant weekly witness to our Catholic life and identity. And so I wish us to embrace this in a positive way despite the practical difficulties we may encounter. The very fact this will be an act of penance shared by all Catholics will be a witness to our faith in the midst of our working and family lives. "

"The times they are a changin'" as Mr. Dylan once told us.  The letter can be read in Zenit.

Feast of the Holy Name of Mary

Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary. Since the decree of Pius X, it commemorates the great Polish Hero, John Sobieski [1629-1696], who raised siege of Vienna on September 12, 1683. Mark Alessio provides the background and more.