Our Lady Honored on 45s

The 1950s were an amazing time. A song called “Our Lady of Fatima” made the charts–even to the top 10!
There was an article in Time Magazine about the song, which you can read here.

You can listen to Andy Williams sing this song at Last.fm.

The song was released by a number of artists. Here are images of a 45 released by the Mariners–a quartet of two black and two white men who met in the Coast Guard.

Our Lady of Fatima

Rosary

Of course, musicians continue to honor Our Lady with new songs and new arrangements of old songs. Here’s Joe Zelek’s arrangement of the “Hail Mary.”

For an example of new original music, here’s Crispin’s “Regina.”

Lent

This is one cold and snowy Lent here in Ohio–a penitential time. One of the local TV stations has the “Snowbird” report, which is a listing of cancellations. The “Snowbird” has been flying a lot lately. I imagine many young people are happy about that.

Archbishop of Canterbury on something

I’m just so amazed at this paragraph, I have to put it on my blog:

“The first point is what we heard concerning mechanisms of exclusion. That is a very unpleasant term, and I agree with those who said that they feel that discomfort and that unpleasantness in it. Behind it lies the very difficult but I think unavoidable question ‘Are there limits plurality infinitely extendable?’ Put in those terms I doubt whether we would any of us say that they were, but our problem in the Communion is that there are some things we know we can disagree about and that some things we don’t quite know that we can disagree about. I’m tempted to quote Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t it on ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ and all that so on; but I think it would be a dangerous assumption that there are no areas where that question doesn’t arise, the question of limits.” – Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury

Wow. That is just so amazing. I think I have some idea of what he means, but I’m not sure. This is ambiguity at its, um, greatest zenith?

I think he is trying to say that there are bound to be some limits to what can be accepted in the Anglican Communion. It doesn’t seem, however, that he can get much of a consensus as to what those limits are. The fact that he has to walk on eggshells to talk about the very idea of “limits” does not bode well for any sort of “official teaching” of the Anglican Communion. The only absolute left is relativity, and where is Jesus in all this?

Jesus, I trust in You!
Thanks be to God for Mary Immaculate.
Anglicans, come to the Church Christ founded!

The Big 150

150 years ago, the Blessed Virgin Mary paid an unexpected visit to a 14 year old girl named Bernadette. The rest is history, and it’s a wonderful history. There are endless cases of divine intervention that made sure the message was not lost, and the miracles of healing made sure that pilgrims would come and continue to come.

A Blog from Lourdes
Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette
Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Bonus news! Fr. Michael Sopocko, the spiritual director of St. Faustina, is going to be beatified later this year!

Matt Maher Preview Video

Now that Matt Maher is under contract to Essential Records (a cog in the SonyBMG wheel), he gets promoted in a big way by the promotional powers-that-be.

Here’s a video to promote his upcoming album. It seems a bit forced to me. This is clearly a corporation promoting its new artist. I get the feeling Matt Maher is being introduced to both the viewer and the people who made the video, but in the case of Mr. Maher’s current fan base, he needs no introduction.

On a related note, there really is a music video of “Your Grace is Enough,” but it’s performed by children rather than Mr. Maher, which is a sort of triumph in itself for him (The kids like it!). Catholic Kids Worship music video

A Poem (most definitely not by me)

The Ancient Of Days
G. K. Chesterton

A child sits in a sunny place,
Too happy for a smile,
And plays through one long holiday
With balls to roll and pile;
A painted wind-mill by his side
Runs like a merry tune,
But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,
And the balls are the sun and moon.

A staring doll’s-house shows to him
Green floors and starry rafter,
And many-coloured graven dolls
Live for his lonely laughter.
The dolls have crowns and aureoles,
Helmets and horns and wings.
For they are the saints and seraphim,
The prophets and the kings.