The musings and meandering thoughts of a crotchety old man as he observes life in the world and in a small, rural town in South East Nebraska. I hope to help people get to Heaven by sharing prayers, meditations, the lives of the Saints, and news of Church happenings. My Pledge: Nulla dies sine linea ~ Not a day without a line.
The Vatican has issued a formal decree excommunication after signaling further dialogue was possible. German and Chinese Communist Bishops not excommunicated.
Hawstead is a village in the hundred of Thingoe, some 3 miles S of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The church stands on a by-road at the NW end of the village, alongside Church Farm, and Hawstead Hall is half a mile from the church, to the NE. All Saints' is a big church consisting of a broad aisleless nave with a S porch, a lower chancel with a N vestry and a W tower. The nave and tower are of knapped flints with stone dressings; the E gable of the nave was rebuilt in brick. The chancel is of flint and septaria and the vestry of flint with brick repairs. The nave is substantially of the 15th-16thc., and has Perpendicular windows and buttresses decorated with flushwork panels, but the N and S doorways are 12th century work, clearly reset. Inside is a fine 16th-century hammerbeam angel roof, unfortunately mutilated during the civil war of the 17th century. and over-restored in 1858. The S porch is from the 15th century. The chancel has a blocked round-headed window towards the W end of the S wall, indicating 12th-century fabric. It was re-modelled and probably lengthened in the early 13th century. (plain N and S lancets), and other windows date from all periods from c. 1300 to the 15th century. The chancel arch was heavily restored in the 19th century. The tower is of one campaign, completed c. 1500. It has a polygonal S stair, diagonal W buttresses with flushwork panels, and more intricate flushwork on the battlemented parapet. Above the W doorway is a frieze bearing the arms of Sir Robert Drury and his family's alliances by marriage. Hawstead church is mainly celebrated for its monuments: a late-13th-century knight effigy reputed to be Sir Eustace fitzEustace; tombs of the Drury family dating from the 16th century and early 17th century, and the overblown Italianate tomb of Sir Thomas Cullum (d.1664).
Romanesque sculpture is found on the two nave doorways, and there is a plain font, probably 12th century.
History
In 1086, there were 28 free men in Hawstead, holding 4 carucates of land. The most important of them were Odo, who held 1 carucate, two clerics called Albold and Peter, who held 2 carucates between them, and Agenet, who held 20 acres. There was also a church with 30 acres of free land. The soke and the commendation of this entire holding belonged to St Edmundsbury Abbey. A small parcel of 15 acres, held by 2 free men of Wihtgar before the Conquest, was held by Richard fitzGilbert in 1086.
In the 12th century, records of Bury St Edmunds Abbey distinguish two holdings in Hawstead; one was held first by Ralph de Halstede from the abbot and (by Abbot Sampson's time) by his son Robert. The other was held by Thomas Noel and his heirs. The first principal lords of the manor were the fitzEustace family, who apparently gained their title by the marriage of Thomas fitzEustace to Joan, daughter of Thomas Noel, around the year 1220. The fitzEustace family held the manor until it was sold by John fitzEustace c.1354 to Sir William de Middleton, who in turn sold it to Sir William de Clopton, c.1359. Sir William Clopton sold it to Sir Robert Drury in 1504. Sir Robert became Speaker of the House of Commons and was responsible for much of the building of Hawstead church. He died in 1536. The estate remained in the Drury family until 1656, when it was sold to Thomas Cullum.
A church has stood on this site since at least 1086, and possibly a Saxon church before that. The south porch is Norman, exhibiting the dog-tooth pattern from this period. The piscina and the font are 13th century and have remains of iron fastenings which were apparently used to lock it against the use of holy water for witchcraft. The chancel dates from around 1300. The tower was completed in 1510. The pulpit and lectern date from around 1520. In 1780, the thatched roof was replaced by slates and tiles.
Traditional Catholic morning prayers to help start your day in a godly way! The month of July is dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus. May our devotion to the salvific action of the Precious Blood of Christ increase more fervently this month. We've included the Memorare of the Sacred Heart and litany of the Sacred Heart. Begin your July with daily morning prayer. This video is a compilation of many traditional morning prayers Catholics say, and should not be considered a replacement for those who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office morning prayers.
The earliest Christians were not waiting for the number of the beast. They were reading it. The Hebrew letters of Nero Caesar add up to exactly 666, and the shorter Latin spelling lands on 616, the very variant preserved in some of the oldest surviving copies of Revelation. Two spellings, two numbers, one emperor.
That solution does not empty the prophecy. Daniel saw a fourth beast with a little horn long before Nero. Nero was the first historical mask of a self-deifying power that keeps returning, and St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2 still points ahead to a final man of lawlessness. The mark of the beast is not primarily about technology. It is about allegiance, and the seal of the living God on the foreheads of the faithful is fulfilled in your own baptism and confirmation, worshiped at an altar no tyrant can abolish.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 The Number Everyone Thinks Is Still Coming
1:10 A Wartime Code Name in the Ancient World
2:08 Revelation 13:8 and the Math
2:23 Nero Caesar: 666 and 616
2:51 Irenaeus and the Early Church's Cipher
3:20 Daniel's Fourth Beast and Antiochus
3:51 The Mark of the Beast vs. the Seal of God
4:28 CCC 675-677 and the Final Trial
5:39 The Legend of Nero's Return
6:17 What This Means for Your Daily Allegiance
7:04 Protestant Objection: Did the Prophecy Already Fail
7:39 The Honest Objection About the Math Itself
8:03 Jewish Roots: Daniel and the Cosmic Combat
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The Blessed Virgin Mary was the first "tabernacle" of Jesus, and when she visited Elizabeth, she brought with her the Real Presence of her Son.
While we may not think of the feast of the Visitation of Mary as a Eucharistic feast, Pope Benedict XVI made the connection in an address during the Year of the Eucharist in 2005.
He first noted how Pope John Paul II named Mary the "Woman of the Eucharist":
In his last Encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, our beloved Pope John Paul II presented her to us as "Woman of the Eucharist" throughout her life (cf. n. 53). "Woman of the Eucharist" through and through, beginning with her inner disposition: from the Annunciation, when she offered herself for the Incarnation of the Word of God, to the Cross and to the Resurrection; "Woman of the Eucharist" in the period subsequent to Pentecost, when she received in the Sacrament that Body which she had conceived and carried in her womb.
With this connection in mind, it is interesting how there is a tradition in some places of housing the Eucharist in tabernacles that are within statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Father Stefano Manelli, in his book Jesus Our Eucharistic Love, briefly explains this tradition:
[I]n some of the churches in France, the tabernacle used to be encased in a statue of Our Lady of the Assumption. The significance is quite clear: it is always the Blessed Virgin Mary who gives us Jesus, who is the blessed Fruit of Her virginal womb and the Heart of Her Immaculate Heart.
The first Eucharistic procession
Pope Benedict XVI goes a step further and takes all of this symbolism and ties it to the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth:
Today, in particular, we pause to meditate on the mystery of the Visitation of the Virgin to St Elizabeth...In a certain way we can say that her journey was -- we like to emphasize in this Year of the Eucharist -- the first "Eucharistic procession" in history. Mary, living Tabernacle of God made flesh, is the Ark of the Covenant in whom the Lord visited and redeemed his people. Jesus' presence filled her with the Holy Spirit.
In many ways it is hoped that any Eucharistic procession we participate in have the same spirit of joy. We hope and pray when we process through the streets that others will recognize Jesus and be filled with the Holy Spirit, just as Elizabeth was when Mary visited her.
Official estimates were of at least 16,000 registered attendees.
Ecône Diary: Wednesday 1st July, Feast of the Precious Blood
Any visitor to the international seminary of the Society of St Pius X at Ecône is likely to notice the crackling of the powerlines that run near the site and terminate at the electrical plant next door. Wednesday 1st July 2026, the Feast of the Most Precious Blood and the day of the Society’s consecrations of four new bishops, was a day that felt highly charged with significance. There was a crackling electricity in the air – the day had finally arrived and it was to be one of many emotions.
On my arrival at the seminary site, the myriad of countries served by the Society’s priests was immediately apparent. Like the nations at Pentecost, faithful from every continent and many tongues streamed up the hillside. I heard the event jokingly likened to a ‘Trad World Youth Day.’ Official estimates were of at least 16,000 registered attendees with perhaps even more arriving unregistered on the day. There were around 1,000 chairs for priests and religious in the mass tent, 4000 more in the meadow and thousands of laity using their own pilgrimage-style seating in the field.
The text in the booklet of the Episcopal Consecrations referring to the consecrator and two co-consecrating bishops may have helped excite rumours that Bishop Schneider or Bishop Strickland would be present as a surprise co-consecrator on the day. In fact, I am informed that the words of the booklet were simply the standard words of the text according to the Roman Pontifical and the Roman Missal.
Bishop Williamson, consecrated in the exact same meadow spot thirty-eight years ago yesterday, memorably described the largely hostile press in their enclosure as like a “pack of baying animals” in 1988. Admittedly, the posture and tone of the Society towards Rome was more confrontational then and to the mainstream media, wedded to the narrative of John Paul II’s “conservatism,” the SSPX were unreconstructed “extremists.” Today, I was in a mixed press tent of around a hundred Catholic and secular media and the attitude towards the Society was more balanced.
Fr Pagliarani’s sermon, after the episcopal oaths and examinations, focused on the virtue of faith. Doctrine has always been the heart of the Society’s argument and it was on this basis that the Superior General justified the momentous ceremony. “We belong to the Church primarily by the virtue of faith” and “we must transmit the faith,” Fr Pagliarani said, invoking the Church’s marks of unity (of profession of faith) and apostolicity respectively. Therefore “we take exceptional measures which are proportionate to the needs of today.” This was the core of Fr Pagliarani’s case.
Some consideration of the course of Leo’s pontificate by the Society after a year was also evident:
it is precisely because we sincerely love the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and head of the Church that we no longer want to see him humiliated alongside false shepherds representing false religions. We have seen this happen so many times over the years. Because we love the Vicar of Christ, we no longer want this humiliation for the Pope, a humiliation that falls upon the whole Church, treating her as though she were on an equal footing with false religions. (unofficial English translation)
When compared to the sermon of Archbishop Lefebvre at the 1988 Consecrations, the tone of Fr Pagliarani’s justification was noticeably softer. There was less emphasis on the putative errors of Vatican II and papal scandals like the 1986 Assisi meeting; the differences between Rome and the Society were instead framed as different languages that were mutually incomprehensible:
We speak the language of faith. We want it in all its simplicity. It is the language of Tradition. Those on the other side speak another language altogether: the language of inclusion, listening, dialogue and accompaniment.
There was also no mention from Fr Paliarani, as +Lefebvre had made in 1988, that one of the motives for the unapproved consecrations was to guarantee the sacrament of holy orders for Society seminarians rather than rely on “conciliar bishops, who, due to their doubtful intentions, confer doubtful sacraments,” although Fr Pagliarani did mention the providential growth of the Society since 1988 under its own bishops.
The words of the consecrator to the newly-consecrated bishop when giving him his crozier are illuminating of the mind of the Church with respect to Her shepherd’s duties in maintaining discipline for the sake of the truth and the common good of the faithful:
Receive this staff, the symbol of the pastoral office: that thou mayest be mercifully severe in the correction of vices, a judge without anger, gently sustaining in the practice of virtues the spirits thou wilt have to govern, without letting this peaceful severity cause thee to forget the censuring of abuses.
How this prayer encapsulates the virtues the Church has such need of from Her shepherds! And yet this practice of “merciful severity” (such as the charitable anathema) is exactly what the postconciliar hierarchy, starting with the popes, have refused to practice in the face of a flood of doctrinal, liturgical and moral abuses since the Second Vatican Council.
The four-and-a-half-hour ceremony was full of such treasures of Catholic doctrine. Prayers that invoked the Old Testament saints and the types they present of episcopacy were particularly moving and provocative of meditation on the fullness of the priesthood. The bishops’ hands were anointed in turn, “even as Samuel anointed David to be king and prophet” and the consecrator prayed that the figures of Aaron and the Levitical priesthood “clothed in a mystical garment… inspired reverence; and for us, the reality of things must excite a sentiment far deeper than did enigmatic figures.”
Critics of the SSPX have been quick to insinuate that the twenty or so minute-long torrential rainstorm during the time of the distribution of Holy Communion was a manifestation of divine disapproval.
The clergy calmly led the faithful in the recitation of the Holy Rosary during this unexpected interlude. By the time of the imposition of the mitres and gloves and thanksgiving the sun had returned as the Te Deum resounded.
The sun soon dried the clothing of the bedraggled faithful and there was undoubtedly a joyful atmosphere as the assembled people received the bishops’ first blessing.
Time will tell whether the Society of St Pius X itself has passed through the storm.
(Pictured, top): Bishop Goldade processes to Pontifical Vespers.
