Minutiæ

Time has passed rather oddly for me yester-day and so far to-day: I spent most of Monday sleeping - obviously jetlag hit me again - only getting up for a while mid-morning, and again in the evening!  I felt terribly weak and wrung out.  But this morning I arose bright and early, during morning twilight, before half-past five: I watched the sunrise (far to the south-east) some time about a quarter past six...

Another matter of small moment: while in Melbourne on Saturday, I indulged my desire for some yum cha for lunch (just a few little dishes, and a copious pot of Chinese tea), thinking it would be ages before I had the chance for this again - so imagine my delight to find out, via this morning's Examiner (our local paper), that one Chinese restaurant here now offers daily yum cha for lunch.  Mmmm.

Again, I thought to record for my benefit - and since I blog, why not list it here to expose my foolishness? - the books I bought while overseas (a list, alas, that had I more funds and a larger baggage allowance, I would most definitely have added to enormously!):

• The [Brompton] Oratory Magazine (January 2010);
• Mass of Ages, Magazine of the Latin Mass Society [of England and Wales], November 2009;
• Christopher Keeffe, How Saints are Canonized (CTS);
• Charles Dessain, Cardinal Newman, the Oratory and the Laity (a pamphlet);
• Jerome Bertram, On Relics (the booklet that got me into some trouble through too zealously reading!);
• St Aloysius Parish, Oxford - Third English Oratory: A Brief History and Guide, 1793-2000 (3rd edition);
• Aidan Nichols, The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England;
• Lord Norwich, Byzantium: The Decline and Fall (I've just finished Byzantium: The Apogee, and look forward to reading this last of the trilogy);
• The Scottish Book of Common Prayer of 1929 (in my view, the apogee of mainstream Anglican Catholic-tending liturgy);
• George Mackay Brown, Hawkfall and A Calendar of Love (this author, who lived in the Orkney Islands, is one of the few fiction writers I read; his short stories I first discovered over fifteen years ago, courtesy of a gift from my aunt upon her return from Scotland, which volume I've read and reread, so I'm glad to have got these, and will arrange to purchase some more later);
• Jennifer Brave, [Venerable] Margaret Sinclair (CTS);
• The Catholic Herald for Christmas 2009 (how excellent: a UK journal as Catholic and positive as The Tablet is dissenting and negative - passed onto me by Mark, very kindly);
• Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View;
• Thomas Crean, God is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins;
• Thomas Dixon, Science and Religion;
• Raymond Edwards, Catholic Traditionalism (CTS - an excellent survey of this, my own preferred subset of Catholicism);
• Benedict XVI, The Apse Mosaic - Basilica di San Clemente;
• San Clemente, Roma and Mosaico di San Clemente (two lovely books of photographs of the art and architecture of this fascinating church complex);
• Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics (published 1942 - I bought it secondhand for $9, and was amused to find still inside it the original receipt, shewing that it was bought new in 1943 for £1/5/- Australian, plus sixpence postage; while I disagree with Huxley's notions of mysticism as undogmatic worship in spirit and truth, and of Catholicism as deviating from true mysticism, this is a fascinating and insightful book about Fr Joseph of Paris, a Capuchin friar who rather bizarrely combined severe asceticism, devoted contemplation, and high public office under Cardinal Richelieu, whose successor he was to be prior to his death in 1638 - he was hated because, in a remarkably Jesuitical manner, he sincerely supported the terrible continuance of the Thirty Years' War, misidentifying Providence with the glory of France).

Of course, I also picked up when in Rome the English editions of L'Osservatore Romano, and in my travels bought various newspapers...