Friday, July 02, 2010

Lost and Found

I have just had a call from Westminster cathedral sacristy to say that my biretta which I discovered I must have left in the sacristy has been found. I can`t say how relieved I am and impressed by the sacristy staff who took time to look for it in the midst of their centenary week.
I imagine in pre-conciliar days there was a constant losing of birettas on occasions at cathedrals.

19 comments:

Kenneth Miles said...

One less worry for you Father...

1569 Rising said...

I blame the Tories. Birettas never went missing under Labour.

Did you pray to St Anthony? It normally works for me. I bet the Cure of Ars never lost his biretta.

Fr Michael Brown said...

Well I can say that I never lost a biretta under Labour. Not sure what to make of that.I forgot about St Anthony I have to confess. I was too busy looking at websites to see where I could get a replacement. This was a Luzar biretta but unfortunately I can`t afford his prices any more.

Richard S Rainbow said...

1569 Uprising: We do not have a Tory government; the Liberals (not an accurate description of them) are in it, too, and we should blame them for birettas going missing. (If we blame Fr B for losing it, as we might, this would never get onto his blog.)The Cure d'Ars is always pictured wearing his biretta so he probably slept in it, as well as wearing it while boiling his weekly pot of spuds. So, no, he would never have lost it (his biretta, that is).
Fr B; You could have tried EBay for a biretta. Everything is there!

King Edward II said...

1569 - Birettas never went missing under Labour (old or new) because they had never heard of them. You can be sure if they had heard of them they would have banned them - flat caps only if you please. They wanted to ban smoking jackets until some kind soul pointed out that they didn't actually emit smoke. To be serious for a moment, the only thing that goes missing under labour is your money. If the Tories can wear top hats or bowlers then they can have no argument against birettas.

I see you have slipped in the good old Cure of Ars again. Actually the good Curé would not have lost his biretta - he would have lost his barrette.

1569 Rising said...

King Edward 11 -

Are you the potato blogger of last week, or are you actually His Majesty, you know, 1307 - 1327?
You have been badly treated by history, described as incompetent, destroyed by political squabbling and military defeats, unseated by your plotting wife, and too concerned about your "friends" Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser.

I am impressed by your knowledge of French clerical headgear, I had to look up "barrette" in the dictionary, but then you may have been a rotten king, but you are obviously a learned gentleman.

Mr Rainbow obviously has a fetish about the Cure's dietary habits. How sad, he should get out more, maybe to the Milvain Club.

King Edward II said...

1569 - which do you prefer - a rotten king or a rotten potato. Both could come under the name of King Edward.
Incidentally, when I was unseated by my wife I lost my crown - which is not quite so bad as losing a biretta.

Richard S Rainbow said...

King Edward ll said: 'Incidentally, when I was unseated by my wife I lost my crown - which is not quite so bad as losing a biretta.' But, Sire, surely much more careless. But also, Sire, I must take great exception to your derogatory remark: 'a rotten king or a rotten potato. Both could come under the name of King Edward.' The King Edward breed of potato is in my opinion and that of very many others the only potato really worth eating and if the Cure d'Ars had known them he would certainly not have left them to go black with mould. King Edward ll, please withdraw your remark.
All the priests I know who celebrate the EF Mass appear to have birettas and make a point of wearing them when entering and leaving the church but whatever happened to the custom of wearing them while preaching (raising them whenever the Holy Name was mentioned). One priest went so far as to say it seemed silly to do so! Is it something to to do with the custom of wearing one's hair long or a reluctance to disturd a carefully combed mane?

King Edward II said...

Mr Rainbow - I may be a potato, or even a king, but in either manifestation I know my place. You said it is much more careless to lose a crown rather than a biretta. I must disagree. A biretta represents the helmet of salvation while a crown merely signifies some earthly rank of passing interest while the wearer is still alive. It is temporal, whereas the biretta represents something which is eternal. I know which I prefer.
I am sure that the Curé of Ars would have been quite indifferent to the aristocratic connections of the King Edward potato, whether fresh, mouldy, or absolutely black.
Did your priest friend say it was silly to wear a biretta, or to doff it at the mention of the Holy Name of Jesus? Does he know that it represents the helmet of salvation or does he think it is just something else that traditional priests wear? If someone is wearing the helmet of salvation and thinks it silly to doff it at the name of Jesus then I can only assume that he does not know what he is wearing, and why. This is not a criticism but merely a comment on the lack of training that priests now receive. Actually, it has a great and positive impact on the congregation when they see their priest publicly acknowledging the name of Jesus Christ.

Kenneth Miles said...

Richard S Rainbow said...
but whatever happened to the custom of wearing them while preaching (raising them whenever the Holy Name was mentioned).

Richard, go to Birmingham Oratory, that is how they still do it.

Richard S Rainbow said...

Sadly, I have no way of preventing anyone from reading my postings in the way they want to read them. My priest friend (who, incidently, happens to be a priest who says the EF Mass regularly and who is very knowledgeable about it) did not say it was silly to raise the biretta at any mention of the Holy Name (which was why that bit of my posting was in brackets; I thought that was obvious) but to wear it while preaching and my question was posed not to elicit a subjective reply as to the meaning of a biretta but to ask why the custom of wearing it while preaching the sermon (am I supposed to say ‘homily’ now?) has apparently been discontinued. King Edward ll may well be right about it representing the ‘helmet of salvation’ (but maybe he is wrong) but that makes it odd that the Pope does not wear a biretta!

Em said...

Richard S Rainbow said...
"but whatever happened to the custom of wearing them while preaching (raising them whenever the Holy Name was mentioned)."

Then Kenneth Miles said...
Richard, go to Birmingham Oratory, that is how they still do it.

Or to Zell am See - that is how the young priest does it there too.

1569 Rising said...

I can see Richard Rainbow, Kenneth Miles and His Majesty hot-footing it to Zell am See for a touch of the old biretta doffing.

Could Zell am See stand such an invasion? The bars would be full of feverish arguments about potatoes and clerical headgear, so Fr Brown would have to come to mediate, I understand the Cure of Ars would not be able to make the journey.

One point, I don't know whether there are trolley buses in Zell am See, and the Milvain Bridge is in Italy, so no club for Herr Rainbow to dance in.

Richard S Rainbow said...

Thank you Ken and Em I was in Birmingham in 1975 so have no need to return.

Em said...

1569 Rising asked:

"Could Zell am See stand such an invasion? The bars would be full of feverish arguments about potatoes and clerical headgear, so Fr Brown would have to come to mediate, I understand the Cure of Ars would not be able to make the journey."

I think it might be better to go somewhere else in the evening to discuss potatoes and clerical headgear because Zell am See is very rough at night.
There are fights reported in the newspaper at least once a week always involving Brit holidaymakers and one other group usually Croats, Turks or Serbs.

King Edward II said...

1569 is quite correct in saying there would be feverish arguments about potatoes in Zell am See because one of the local delicacies is a plateful of potato dumplings. And for the more discerning diner there is aways the choice of a potato galette. What could be a more suitable subject for discussion that the relative merits of dumplings versus galettes?
I have it on good authority that the fights reported in the newspaper involving Brit holidaymakers were over complaints that there were no chips.

Anonymous said...

What trivia you worry about....the biretta went out years ago, it's an unnecessary accessory ; I could understand your concern if you mislaid your Brievary or Rosary...

Fr Michael Brown said...

Anonymous, I expect you would say that Pontifical Mass at the faldstool went out years ago too. However I wonder if you have heard of a Motu proprio of 07/07/07 which made the traditional liturgy widely available. I needed a biretta for it. As my biretta cost about £60 I was glad not to have to buy another. I was able to pick it up from the cathedral this week.

Edward the Confessor said...

Unfortunately, along with the ditching of the biretta there were other things that great liturgical minds of the 1960s decided were 'unnecessary accessories' - beautiful altars, altar rails, pulpits, even tabernacles in some cases. Then there was the ditching of other minor 'unnecessary accessories' such as the amice, the cincture, cassocks, cottas. Decent and appropriate chasubles were replaced by unlined polyester sacks, cotton albs were replaced by polyester zip-ups for convenience. Need I go on? Vesting prayers that explained the significance of the vestments they were donning were ditched as 'unnecessary' so that the priest could dash into the vestry and throw on the polyester sack for quickness. Prayers of thanksgiving for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice were ditched so that the priest could dash outside and be in place to shake hands with everyone and thank them for coming.
'Catholic' hymn books were ditched for more meaningful hymns so we could sing about watching the sun rise. The trivial pipe organs and Gregorian chant were replaced by guitars so that ageing hippies could impress everyone with the clapping Gloria or the deeply spiritual Kumbaya.
If people truly understood what these 'unnecessary accessories' signified then they would not be so quick to make such silly comments. Unfortunately, such has been the abysmal level of religious instruction of the past 45 years that anyone who has grown up during this period cannot help but be ignorant of almost all aspects of the faith - both theological and liturgical.