Friday, May 29, 2009

At the Hermitage

Yours truly is well and truly satiated, after an eight-course degustation dinner at the Hermitage, Mt Cook, N.Z. The bottle of Northburn Station rose was very pleasant also...
I have a mind to write to the bishops of New Zealand to protest the insane madness of their having their own modern version of the Lord's Prayer at Mass, since this impedes the (forgive me) "active participation" of the faithful, i.e. me. To-day, hearing a perfectly unexceptional Novus Ordo at St Joseph's, Queenstown (and boosting the attendance by 20%), at least I managed to pray that Prayer of prayers sotto voce, rather than utterly giving up as on previous occasions. I can only assume that, because there is a significant "Pasifika" (i.e. Polynesian) component to the demographics of the Church in N.Z., they have gone with a version suitable for, ahem, mission countries.
Other curious observations: here in the South Island they still have petrol station attendants who fill the petrol tank for you, without you having to self-service your vehicle - how quaint, that went out years ago back home -; and as well as wood and kindling for the home fires they also sell coal (the winters here being very fierce).
I have had now so ever many temporal consolations, and thank the Lord for these while waiting patiently upon the inscrutable dispositions of His Providence. To-morrow, back to Christchurch for the Vigil of Pentecost...

2 comments:

Quasi Seminarian said...

Once a while ago I asked a NZ priest about the strange translation.

I was told that when JP II visited NZ, the Bishops used it then. In the end only the southern diocese (or dioceses) kept it while the northern parts returned to normalcy.

Least that was what I was told. I for one do not like the NZ form of Mass.

Joshua said...

That chimes in with what Fr Harrison told me in Dunedin.

I have only, in fact, heard English Mass in the diocese of Dunedin - in Christchurch, I go Latin.