Catholic Churches of Our Lady of Sorrows,
Effingham and The Holy Spirit, Fetcham

The Ash Tree lent its branches for the fire on the first Christmas night and since then its beneficial quality of burning green has been confirmed.

The White Campion only yields its scent at night to commemorate its hour of the sacred birth.

The Great Mullein is called the sacred flannel because its wooly leaves were used for the first swaddling clothes.

The Yellow Galleum burst into golden flowers to make an aureole about the head of the Child and is still called Our Lady’s bedstraw.

The Bracken refused the act of homage and has never flowered since as a consequence.  If it is cut across the stem at Christmas it shows the sacred initial in the Greek character as a sign of penitence.

Sheilagh Trier

A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, ‘You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don’t have to wait as long to get our coffee.’

The husband said, ‘You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffe.’

Wife replies, ‘No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee.’
Husband replies, ‘I can’t believe that, show me.’

So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says……….’HE BREWS’

Croagh Patrick

Last July my friend, Father Michael, and I witnessed the annual pilgrimage to the summit of Croagh Patrick, ‘nature’s cathedral of the west’, as it is known.  Some 25,000 people climbed the mountain, people from all walks of life, rich and poor, young and old – some very old.  Many of the pilgrims climbed the mountain in their bare feet! (more…)

BENEDICTINES (called black monks from the colour of their habits, OSB – Order of St Benedict) the oldest monastic order, founded by St Benedict in the sixth century at Monte Cassino in Italy.

Monte Casino

His Rule, only some 12,000 words long, established the pattern of communal living, chastity, the absence of personal possessions, of obedience to the abbot, and the form of worship.  As well as a long night-office, there were seven day offices: Matins or Lauds (daybreak), Prime (6.00 am), Terce (9.00 am) Sext (noon), Nones (3.00 pm), Vespers (sundown) and Compline (9.00 pm).  The humanity of St Benedict is seen in his provision that the first psalm of the night-office be said slowly to give lie-abeds time to make it into church.  Each week all the psalms were read, and each year, most of the Bible. (more…)