Yesterday, before I went to sleep my eye fell on a post in my twitter feed. It said “According to USGS a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti“. I never witnessed a real earthquake, so I don’t know what being in an earthquake is. The biggest ones we get are around 3.5 and they are quite rare. They are a result of gas mining and nothing like the big ones people in the Americas have to endure.
I retweeted the tweet and asked my friends on Facebook for prayers. I said a prayer myself and went to bed. I don’t have a TV so I haven’t seen any footage of the Haiti quake. But I get really sad when I hear that the death toll is rising above 100,000 victims. I can’t help looking up and ask the age-old question: Why?
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Easter Vigil 2009 was great! For me, this is one of the most awesome Masses of the whole liturgical year! During Mass I tried to make some pictures with my cell phone, but with the flash switched off. I didn’t want to ruin other people’s devotion. I hope you get an impression how Mass was like, but it’s better to actually be there. But the next opportunity is in 2010, so until then, you’ll have to do with the pictures!
Photo by MacariusIn our cathedral we sing the ‘Solesmes’ version of the Stabat Mater, in my opinion it’s simple but very beautiful. You hear one of our choir members, Sjoukje singing in the front of the cathedral and Mark singing along seated next to me.
When you click on ‘Read more’, you’ll find the lyrics of the chant.
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Photo by mollycakesGood morning! I just came back from the cathedral… 
Last night I spent the night chanting and praying with a number of other fellow parishioners.
It started last night at 9pm with the “Dark Matins” sung in Gregorian by our new Schola: Schola Nova Gregoriana. They just started and this was their first performance and I must say that they really sound good already. It’s very promising. We’re really spoiled to have two full scholas in our parish and one very good choir. After they finished, the All Night Vigil started 45 minutes later. We prayed a full rosary, we listened to a reading from Isaiah 1:1-20, did the Litany of the Holy and Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ; we did the Office of Readings for Good Friday, the second reading bySt. John Chrysostom, who was bishop of Constantinople († 407) and right after that we sung the Stabat Mater, the Solesmes version. I think that’s the most beautiful version I’ve ever sung. Everything was wrapped up by our priest at 7:00 am, by praying Lauds. I really REALLY liked doing it, hoping we have some more All Night Vigils in the coming year!
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Last summer I was received into the Catholic Church and one of the first things I had to learn was how to receive Holy Communion in a reverent way. Everybody has been taught to receive on the hand, standing. The idea is that your hands will form a ‘throne’ for the Lord. It didn’t take long for me to change that to receiving on the tongue. This happened during my holiday, a week after I was received into the Church. We were staying at a Benedictine abbey where the custom was to receive kneeling on the tongue at the 17th century Baroque communion rails in the abbey’s church. I noticed that receiving that way helped my devotion to the Blessed Sacrament a lot. I thought it was a pity that the beautiful communion rails of our cathedral aren’t in use anymore, but also could understand why. Communion would take forever if two people would have to give it to people kneeling down at the rails. People who advocate it to take up the practice now usually don’t realise that there are much less Eucharistic ministers available compared to pre-Vatican II days. There aren’t simply as many priests, deacons and the like around during Mass. So in my parish we have two regular Eucharistic ministers: the priest and a hermit / monk who almost finished seminary before becoming a monk.
So although I understand why Holy Communion isn’t distributed anymore at the communion rails, I think it’s a pity I hardly have the opportunity to receive that way.
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The feast of Epiphany will be celebrated on January 4th instead of the regular January 6th in the Dutch Ecclesial Province. I think the reason for it is that January 6 is not a public holiday. Since the day has the rank of Solemnity, moving it to Sunday gives working people who want to attend Mass the occasion to do so. Epiphany means ‘Revelation’ or ‘Manifestation’.
God announces the birth of his Son, the Incarnate Word who is God, to the world using the Star of Bethlehem. What does this feast mean to me?
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Yesterday I wrote the first part of my conversion story, today I want to finish it. After my Confirmation I went to Germany and Austria for my holiday together with my godmother. We started our travels in Kehlheim in Bavaria and we stayed in a Benedictine Abbey in the small village of Weltenburg. Goal of our holiday was walking in the footsteps of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. We stayed literally at the banks of the river Danube. I really LOVED the Benedictine atmosphere over there. After that we continued our travels to Austria, and again we stayed with a religious order. But this time it was a completely different order, they were the Missionaries of St. Peter Claver which is a relatively modern order and they are sisters, not nuns. I really REALLY missed being with the Benedictines, the contrast was rather strong. But it was here where I had a real strong religious experience.
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I can’t repeat often enough how happy I am to be a Catholic. It’s a tremendous joy to be able to live with Jesus like I do now. I feel incredibly blessed! I don’t think this is what people call ‘a first love’, because I converted years ago from being an Atheist to being a Reformed Presbyterian Protestant. That conversion was mainly rational: at one point I had to admit God did exist and that he did send his Son to us to sacrifice Himself so we could be saved. I had to be baptised because to me that was the only thing I could do when I wanted to take myself seriously. I want to practice what I believe, and therefore not being baptised was living a lie. I want to be consistent to what I belief, always. It may sound weird, but I hope you will see why this is an important point in my conversion story.
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After Mass I hear the same question a lot of times: “What’s that on your head? It looks kind of cool, but why do you wear it?” For me it’s a great opportunity to testify of my faith and my spirituality. “It” is a mantilla, a white lace chapel veil. I love seizing that opportunity to stress that I don’t think it’s compulsory for women to cover their heads.
Normally, the only moment in a Catholic church you see a mantilla or a chapel veil is during weddings, usually the only one wearing it is the bride and it’s usually rather long too. I wear a similar thing, but much shorter. Mine just touches my shoulders, although I own another one that’s a bit longer. That one I intend to wear when it’s warm and I wear a shirt without sleeves. At least my mantilla will cover my shoulders that way. I wear it because I love wearing it, and a bit out of habit from my former Protestant church, in which it was compulsory for women to cover their heads (usually with rather ugly looking hats). In my ‘new’ church I wear a mantilla out of free choice, because I want to. It’s an expression of my spirituality which I will explain here.
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Photo by tijmz
Sean, the Ductape Guy, asked me a while ago if I wanted to participate in his New Media Advent Calendar Project. It’s similar to the regular Advent Calendars you’ll see with the little doors with chocolate behind it, but he wanted ‘well-known people in Catholic New Media’ to do something every day leading up to Christmas to prepare for that Solemnity.
He caught me by surprise, because I consider myself in no way to be a ‘Catholic celebrity’ of any kind. Since I’m a geek who likes to tinker with anything computer related, I decided to give it a try and you can see the result of it when you click on the ‘read more’ link below 
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Yesterday, before I went to sleep my eye fell on a post in my twitter feed. It said “According to USGS a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti“. I never witnessed a real earthquake, so I don’t know what being in an earthquake is. The biggest ones we get are around 3.5 and they are quite rare. They are a result of gas mining and nothing like the big ones people in the Americas have to endure.
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