This whole week those using the traditional Liturgy celebrate the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Mystery of Pentecost (at least for this week, I've gone back to reading Matins as well as the Day Hours, since Matins have only three psalms during the Octave, O joy); compare and contrast this with sad useless blundering Pope Paul VI, who on the Monday after Pentecost 1970 descended to the papal sacristy, and angrily turned on the sacristan - Why no red vestments? - to be told in just riposte, You abolished the Octave, Holy Father. Poor Hamlet Pope! What misery his vacillation and weakness brought upon the whole Church! Even when he stood firm, as with Humanæ vitæ, his inability to handle the worsening situation let a bad problem get wholly out of control... in hindsight, only the firmest of measures could have prevented the wholesale defection from faith and morals that actually transpired, when the voices of dissent inflamed rebellion.
Enough of worry; my holiday plans have had me doing a wine tour around the vineyards of Marlborough to-day, which is The Queen's Birthday Holiday. I may be overseas, but I'm not in a foreign land - in a Commonwealth country, in another of Her Majesty's realms. "Long to reign over us, God save The Queen!"
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