Our Lady of Aberdeen

Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption

Scottish ORDO

Liturgical Calendar for Scotland 2010-2011

SATURDAY 9TH JULY                WHITE

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF ABERDEEN

Mass Prayers Missal p. 693 Sacramentary p. 771 Pref 56-57 Lectionary Vol 2 From the Common of the Blessed Virgin

Divine Office Vol 3 From the Common of the Blessed Virgin Week 2

http://www.stmaryscathedralaberdeen.org/our-lady-of-aberdeen.html  

Below you will find a slideshow of pictures taken recently of the statue of Our lady of Aberdeen at the Church of Our Lady of Finisterre in Brussels.    

Our Lady of Aberdeen

History  

Standing high on a pedestal in a side chapel of a Brussels church is one of Scotland's treasures, a statue of Our Lady and Child which was saved from destruction in Aberdeen during the Reformation.For sixty-five years, it was hidden until it was shipped to safety in the Low Countries. Despite her intention to keep the statue in the Royal Palace, the lnfanta of Spain, the Archduchess Isabella, was persuaded to place it in the newly built Augustinian church in Brussels.The statue remained in this church until 1796, when it was again removed for protection into private hands, this time to escape the ravages of the French Revolution. An Englishman, John Morris, safely restored it to the Augustinians in 1805 and it remained in their care as an object of devotion until 1814 when it was removed to the neighbouring Church of Our Lady of Finisterre. It is still venerated there as Our Lady of Good Success.Since the Restoration of the Scottish Hierarchy in 1878, devotion to Our Blessed Lady in Aberdeen, throughout the diocese, and further afield, has focused on copies of this ancient statue including the statue (left) which stands in the Chapel of Our Lady here at Saint Mary's Cathedral.

9th July is the day set aside in the Aberdeen diocese for the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Aberdeen.   

Prayer to Our Lady of Aberdeen

Our Lady of Aberdeen, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, we thank you for your intercession on our behalf in the past. With renewed confidence we turn to you again, asking that you may through your Son, help to strengthen our faith and guide us in our resolve to carry out his will.

We commend to you our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, and our Bishop, Peter, and ask that you may look favourably upon their intentions.

We pray for all the needs of the Church; that you may bring about unity among men in the love of your Son.

Our Lady of Aberdeen, we pray for those who rule us, we pray for our neighbours, our families and ourselves that the peace of Christ may reign among us, always.

Our Lady of Aberdeen, Our Lady of Good Success, pray for us.

Hymn to Our Lady of Aberdeen

Our Lady of Good Succour,
we raise our thoughts to thee,
where the Don flows down the valley
to greet the silver Dee.
Help us to foster bravely,
amid this beauteous scene,
a faith both deep and loving,
Our Lady of Aberdeen.

Our Lady of Good Succour,
in the country saints have trod
Saint John the brave Confessor
laid down his life for God;
with the zeal of great Columba
and Margaret, saint and queen,
inspire anew thy children,
Our Lady of Aberdeen.

Our Lady of Good Succour,
may the love of God enfold
our people, and surround them
with gifts of grace untold.
May a brighter dawn be breaking,
and a fairer hope be seen
for our city and our nation,
Our Lady of Aberdeen.

Our Lady of Good Succour,
once by this comely shore
men looked to thy protection
and favours would implore.
To serve thy Son still guide us,
O patroness serene;
for Scotland is thy kingdom,
Our Lady of Aberdeen.

Below you will find a slideshow of pictures taken recently of the statue of Our lady of Aberdeen at the Church of Our Lady of Finisterre in Brussels.

http://www.stmaryscathedralaberdeen.org/our-lady-of-aberdeen.html

May learn slideshow website apl    http://www.weebly.com/  

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BrusselsPictures.com | Notre-Dame-du-Finistère

www.brusselspictures.com/churches/notre-dame-du-finistere/ - Cached

The Notre-Dame-du-Finistère church was built at the beginning of the XVIII ... in the past) of Our Lady of Finistèreon the side altar to the right of the ...  

COMMENT Matt 11:25-30 and Sacra Pagina

9th July Aberdeen Cathedral

It is Our Lady Saturday Memorial.

Any search of special Lady of Aberdeen Collects and Readings has failed so far!

Hi, William,
Thank you for comments.
Thought and reflection on Matt 11:25-30 remains of endless return to the text.
A tantalizing comment with our visit from the Iceland, Fr. Edward OP, is this PP's Homily for the 14th Sunday. See below.
Yours ....
Donald
PS. Edward is on our wave-length. 


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: WILLIAM WARDLE ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Tue, 5 July, 2011 22:18:33
Subject: Re: [Matt 11:25-30 and Sacra Pagina

Dear Father Donald,

 

Sacra Pagina - Matthew - does not illuminate the fascinating link between vs 25 & 27, but has a very attractive statement on v 27: All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

 

"In the background of the Father-Son saying in Matt 11:27 is the Jewish (and early Christian) debate about what and where wisdom is. The tradition of wisdom as a (female) person has been well established since Proverbs 8.... Matt 11:27 presents Jesus as divine wisdom incarnate. Those who know him know the Father - which is after all the ultimate in wisdom."  (page 169/170)

Sacra Pagina - John - is similarly non-reflective as I follow 'links' between Matt 11:25-27 and possible parallels / similarities in John's Gospel [Jn 3:35; 6:46; 7:28; 10:15, each picking up on one aspect of Our Lord's words in Matthew's text]. An interesting comment is on John 10:15: just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. 

 

"The theme of "knowledge" has been present throughout.." (page 311) 

This links back to Benedict XVI's superb interpretation: "Only the "Son"knows the Father, and all real knowledge of the Father is a participation in the Son's filial knowledge of him, a revelation that he grants”; to which Benedict XVI adds that it is not only in knowledge that this oneness exists, but also in will: “The will of the Son is one with the will of the Father… the act of uniting and merging the two wills".

 WHAT A BLESSING are the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, both in commentary and in interpretation!

...  in Our Lord,

William

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14 Sunday 2011 Fr Edward Booth OP

               In this Gospel passage from Saint Matthew Our Lord first details some of the relationships between himself and the Father, together with the relationships which are given a kind of primacy between the Father and this world. The Father is "the Lord of Heaven and Earth," but he is behind the inspiration of revelation in the minds of men. Our Lord addresses him saying, "You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent". He knows intimately the minds of the supposed wise and prudent, who have spoilt their relationship between themselves and him, evidently because their knowledge which should have opened them to God, through some impurity in their intention of learning which was based on pride, was not completely open to God in the highest purity of which they were capable. Instead of that, God had revealed depths of wisdom, priceless in themselves, to those who are by comparison "infants".

               So according to Our Lord, not only did the Son, who was His Word, inspire men with true wisdom, and the Holy Spirit, who was the inspirer of men with his gifts and his fruits which included the heights of spiritual joy, but the Father was also active. They were active together, with a suggested slight differentiation. They were all three Divine Persons active in their inspiration of men - and, we could add here, primarily of Jews at this stage. And the knowledge which the Father communicated in his wisdom was communicated as a result of his reflection. He was aware of the spiritual state of men at their deepest and most intimate, being guided by his goodness: "for so it seemed good in your sight".

               From which human communication he passes to the direct communications to Himself from the Father. "All things are delivered to me from my Father". After which he falls into those equalities which are taken up especially in Saint John's Gospel: "All things are delivered to me from my Father;" He as Son is not known adequately to anyone "except the Father". They are both transcendent and are equally transcendent: the Father is not known by any man, but he is known to the Son, because of their equality, but not exactly for that because one meaning of equality is a description of space. But the privileged state of men and the privileged state of divine knowledge makes it possible for the Son to reveal to men the divine Truth which had been communicated to him. The Son has, like the Father, a reflective power such as also guides the Son in his illumination of men. So the Father is also present in the revelation of divine Truth to men. From these statements it becomes clear how the communications to men from the Father and the Son are made with total liberty, by which the truth is revealed with its essential freshness as it was at the moment of their Creation, and so it communicates perfect liberty.

               And the Son, with his personal Mission of revelation has a personal reflectiveness though which by a loving choice of his recipients and of what he wishes to pass on, he fills, easefully, the dry souls of humanity with a connatural food for mind and heart. He is aware of the nature of the hard journey of searching and discovery with the intensity of effort which it requires to extract from what seemed its slight and semi-hidden traces. But he himself will make that discovery of what they were seeking because it will exist in its purest state in his mind and heart. He asks for humility in the face of a truth which is more precious than the truth that is natural to men; this truth has all the fresh vitality of its divine source; it is Wisdom itself in its original divinely Personal nature as it emerges from the Lord who stands behind heaven and earth. It is destined to convey that rest which men need after a long search for spiritual light. Ease of soul is the first gain as men wait for a highly illuminating revelation which opens out the roots and sources of what they are prepared to search out for themselves, with great self-denial. The labour is easeful, which makes what is the highest knowledge in itself to be totally unburdensome. Their vocation to pursue the divine Wisdom is confirmed, and they are communicated with a far higher knowledge than they would have expected. That is a mark of divine favour, introducing them to within the most universal and delicate love in which things now appear within the Tri-une God in their essential timelessness and endlessness. Amen.  

http://www.simnet.is/e.booth

The Parish tower in background,
the FM Franciscan Hospital of 1936
and the modernised hospital in the fore

COMMENT on the connection of 25 and 27 in Matthew 11.

Thank you, William, for the following.
D.

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: WILLIAM ...
To: Donald ... .
Sent: Tue, 5 July, 2011 14:38:38
Subject: Re: [Matt 11:25-30] Ben XVI

Dear Father Donald,

You present this pericope with the interpretation of Pope Benedict XVI’s “Jesus of Nazareth” Vol.1, the most exquisite interpretation of the passage that I have ever read, and I love the conclusion: “The term "Son;' along with its correlate "Father (Abba)," gives us a true glimpseinto the inner being of God himself.”

As an ‘aside’, the word GLIMPSE describes it well for me, for when I first read it, my mind went into spiral mode – as it does when one is trying to read something when overtired. My eyes ‘separated’, as it were, glazing over as I gazed at the text on the screen, two images there before me. And then, as my focus returned and the images reunited, I realised that what I was experiencing with my vision was also being experienced in my spirit… two images, as of the Father and the Son, momentarily 'glimpsed' separately, now rejoined in focus to become one, and how intense the focus had become – indeed, it seemed that only by having that momentary GLIMPSE of them ‘separated’ could I now begin to SEE them as One.

Thank you for a wonderful study – and for a magical moment!

. . . in Our Lord,

William

Benedict XVI’s analysis of the title “Son of God”, with its complex prehistory, leading to the simple designation of “Son”, which is found only on the lips of Jesus, is fascinating. The historical perspective is illuminating, explaining the political theology that attached to the original title, and its progression from the “myth of divine begetting” to the  “theology of election” which could only have meaning in a future promise, which was fulfilled in Jesus. In Jesus the term Son of God became “detached from the sphere of political power and becomes an expression of a special oneness with God” which is displayed, not in earthly courts and palaces but “in the Cross and Resurrection”.

Benedict XVI sees in the passage Mt 11:25-27, the “Messianic Jubelruf” (joyful shout) the decisive testimony:. “Only the Son truly "knows" the Father. Knowing always involves some sort of equality… Truly to know God presupposes communion with him, it presupposes oneness of being with him….It becomes clear what "the Son" is and what this term means: perfect communion in knowledge, which is at the same time communion in being.”

The key passage must be that which follows:

“Only the " 

Visitor from Iceland

Fr. Edward Booth OP

http://www.simnet.is/e.booth/photo.htm

New Photographs from Stykkishólmur

For this issue we have some photographs of the Corpus Christi procession on Sunday. The attendance was not as great as last year, but then it coincided with the First Holy Communions. Neverthless it was enthusiastic:

It was a great pleasure to read an Email sent by the Parish Priest of

Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, showing appreciation of these images

A successful camera excursion during the night to catch the colours of

the sunset prompt us to use three of them at this point: