A Very Franciscan Christmas To All

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Friar Alex is on EWTN’s World Over Live at this moment, doing that very hymn. It was enjoyable to hear his voice, and to hear a few words in the interview before he sang it. What a loveable personality he has!
I missed him – got to the TV too late. But a re-run is on at midnight, and I’m staying up to just hear him sing! Thanks for the tip! I just got it too late to catch the song.
 
I had a very Cistercian Christmas at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. I hope you all had the Christmas of your dreams.

The monks chanted a Christmas Vigil at 10:50 and the Abbot celebrated Mass at midnight. It was neat to see the abbot with his miter and crosier. His homily was about how Jesus wants to be born within you and I and how the more we are attached to created things, the less room we have in our hearts for Jesus. There was a reception after and we got to meet the Abbot and spent some time speaking with a novice 2 years at the monastery and in simple vows.

The person I was with had been raised Baptist and had never been exposed to consecrated religious of any kind - had never even seen a sister or brother other than portrayed in the movies and she had an extremely positive reaction to the whole evening.

The mass was Ordinary Form in English with lots of incense. The brothers chanted the Offeratory hymn.





-Tim-
 
Brother Jr, I hope your more regular posting recently is a good sign, health wise.

May the peace of Christ fill you this Christmas season.

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Awesome pictures Tim. Thanks for sharing them. We had a beautiful Midnight Mass. It was the OF in Latin. Three concelebrants, two brothers and one secular priest. Lots of incense. This crowd would have loved it. They hymns were in Spanish, English and Creole, as were the readings. It was decided to celebrate the mass in Latin rather than try to do three languages. The homily was not that great. It went on too long for that time of night. However, the church was packed. It sits about 1500 and has an adjacent chapel that sits about 100. Every seat was taken.

One young lady commented to me after the mass how she liked that the front rows were taken up by habits. There were Carmelite nuns, Carmelite sisters, and Franciscan Brothers of Life, all in full habits. We Franciscans even wore our pileoli (from pileolus), while the Carmelite nuns and sisters wore their white mantles.
 
Awesome pictures Tim. Thanks for sharing them. We had a beautiful Midnight Mass. It was the OF in Latin. Three concelebrants, two brothers and one secular priest. Lots of incense. This crowd would have loved it. They hymns were in Spanish, English and Creole, as were the readings. It was decided to celebrate the mass in Latin rather than try to do three languages. The homily was not that great. It went on too long for that time of night. However, the church was packed. It sits about 1500 and has an adjacent chapel that sits about 100. Every seat was taken.

One young lady commented to me after the mass how she liked that the front rows were taken up by habits. There were Carmelite nuns, Carmelite sisters, and Franciscan Brothers of Life, all in full habits. We Franciscans even wore our pileoli (from pileolus), while the Carmelite nuns and sisters wore their white mantles.
Your Mass sounds awesome. I can’t wait until Easter. 😃

I wish I had taken more pictures but as you stated in another thread, you could have driven a train through he sanctuary and I would not have noticed. Sitting in the choir stall and kneeling there to pray was sublime.

There were a few Cistercian sisters there and interestingly, quite a few priests with accents that sounded Eastern European. They said “Holy Christmas” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I like that.

My girlfriend saw the monks drinking what looked like egg-nog at the reception and asked me where they keep their secret stash. I had to explain to her that it was probably Ensure and point out how they weren’t eating cookies and chicken wings like the rest of us. It led to a really nice conversation with one of the Brothers about detachment.

We didn’t get back to town until 3:30 AM and I didn’t get back to my house and home until 4:00 or so. So worth it. Part of my heart and soul are in that Abbey Church.

Here is a man who collects liturgical head coverings. philippi-collection.blogspot.com/2011/03/2-special-pileoli-soli-dei-zucchetti.html

-Tim-
 
Your Mass sounds awesome. I can’t wait until Easter. 😃

I wish I had taken more pictures but as you stated in another thread, you could have driven a train through he sanctuary and I would not have noticed. Sitting in the choir stall and kneeling there to pray was sublime.

There were a few Cistercian sisters there and interestingly, quite a few priests with accents that sounded Eastern European. They said “Holy Christmas” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I like that.

My girlfriend saw the monks drinking what looked like egg-nog at the reception and asked me where they keep their secret stash. I had to explain to her that it was probably Ensure and point out how they weren’t eating cookies and chicken wings like the rest of us. It led to a really nice conversation with one of the Brothers about detachment.
I don’t know their statutes. They could have been drinking eggnog with alcohol. Many communities suspend their fasting, abstinence and dietary rules for Christmas and Easter.

We do not fast or abstain during the Christmas or Easter season, not even on Fridays. Normally, we fast and abstain on Wed and Fri. We never use alcohol except Christmas, Easter, the Feast of St. Clare and the Feast of St. Francis. Then we smear the walls in food and drink.
We didn’t get back to town until 3:30 AM and I didn’t get back to my house and home until 4:00 or so. So worth it. Part of my heart and soul are in that Abbey Church.
We got to bed about 4:00 as well and had to be up for morning prayer on Christmas day at 9:00 and mass at 9:30.
This is great!. How did you come across this?

Our own is grey as is our habit.

Here is a picture of mine.

View attachment 18984

Observe that it has embroidery around the edge. This is not typical for most Catholics. These are Jewish symbols. Being a Hebrew Catholic, I had mine embroidered in the symbols for the Messiah. The the leaves are in sets of three and nine.

3 = Divine completeness and perfection

9 = Fruit of the spirit; Divine completeness from the Father

The colors of the leaves are the colors of Israel, blue and white. The Messiah is the fruit of the Spirit and the divine completeness and from the father. He is perfection. Since only God is perfect, then the Messiah must also be God.

The Hebrew Catholics call this peliolus an Emanuel Kippah, because it bridges between Judaism and Christianity.
 
I don’t know their statutes. They could have been drinking eggnog with alcohol. Many communities suspend their fasting, abstinence and dietary rules for Christmas and Easter.

We do not fast or abstain during the Christmas or Easter season, not even on Fridays. Normally, we fast and abstain on Wed and Fri. We never use alcohol except Christmas, Easter, the Feast of St. Clare and the Feast of St. Francis. Then we smear the walls in food and drink.

We got to bed about 4:00 as well and had to be up for morning prayer on Christmas day at 9:00 and mass at 9:30.

This is great!. How did you come across this?

Our own is grey as is our habit.

Here is a picture of mine.

View attachment 18984

Observe that it has embroidery around the edge. This is not typical for most Catholics. These are Jewish symbols. Being a Hebrew Catholic, I had mine embroidered in the symbols for the Messiah. The the leaves are in sets of three and nine.

3 = Divine completeness and perfection

9 = Fruit of the spirit; Divine completeness from the Father

The colors of the leaves are the colors of Israel, blue and white. The Messiah is the fruit of the Spirit and the divine completeness and from the father. He is perfection. Since only God is perfect, then the Messiah must also be God.

The Hebrew Catholics call this peliolus an Emanuel Kippah, because it bridges between Judaism and Christianity.
Super interesting on all accounts!

Thank you for sharing the picture of the kippah. It is beautiful.

I don’t know how I found that website but had it bookmarked. It has every biretta and zucchetti and mongolian headgear and the hat worn by the Dali Lama and Vietnamese priests - crazy.

This is my father’s kippah. It belonged to his doctor’s father who got it in Israel. When my father mentioned to his doctor that he was going to Jerusalem, the doctor gave it to him to wear at the wall. My father used to say, “I’m LBJ… little bit Jewish” and said that he would be Jewish if he were not Christian. I wore it at the Messianic Synagogue when I visited.



-Tim-
 
Super interesting on all accounts!

Thank you for sharing the picture of the kippah. It is beautiful.

I don’t know how I found that website but had it bookmarked. It has every biretta and zucchetti and mongolian headgear and the hat worn by the Dali Lama and Vietnamese priests - crazy.

This is my father’s kippah. It belonged to his doctor’s father who got it in Israel. When my father mentioned to his doctor that he was going to Jerusalem, the doctor gave it to him to wear at the wall. My father used to say, “I’m LBJ… little bit Jewish” and said that he would be Jewish if he were not Christian. I wore it at the Messianic Synagogue when I visited.

http://timhollingworth.webs.com/img/kippah5.JPG

-Tim-
It’s beautiful. Wow!!!

We don’t call our skullcap. Kippah, because all of our brothers are Gentiles. I’m the only Jew. We call it a solideo or a pileolus. I think solideo gets used more often, because it’s easier to say. The lay people around us call it all kinds of things from “a little Jewish hat” to “zucchetto”, which it’s not. A zucchetto has more panels.

When we were founded, we wanted to go back to the ancient habit, as far back as the habit goes. Most people don’t know that the Franciscan habits that we know today were never seen by St Francis or St. Clare. Their clothing was very different. The only thing in common is the cord and the cowl. Even those have been modified over the centuries. The oldest version of the habit is the habit worn by the Franciscans of the Renewal. We know that it was worn as early as the 1300s, because it is referenced in Oxford University’s history. They had Grey Friars Hall, which was one of the colleges run by the Franciscans who were not known as Franciscans at that time. Franciscan is much later term. No one is really sure when it came into use. It may have come into use at different times in different places, not necessarily to refer to the order, but to anything connected to Francis.

We don’t usually wear it at any time other than solemnities, because it’s difficult to keep clean. You have to take off the inside, wash it and then stitch it back in. You only have one. If you wash it every other day, the color fades. The grey becomes almost white. To preserve the outside, we wash only the lining.

Bishops and cardinals have several of them and they have them dry cleaned. Poor people cannot afford to have many and don’t send their clothes to the dry cleaners. We wash at home. The lining is easy to wash. You can do that by hand. It’s the stitching and unstitching that’s a pain in the neck. My daughter gave me a clever idea. She suggest a lining that is held in place with velcro. I have to think if that will actually work. 🤷
 
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