As Clara said, it was frigid outside St. Michael’s in Scranton late on Saturday night. Yet after the new fire had been lit and we had gone back into the church, inside was all aglow with the warm light of many candles held by young and old. We had come as far as the prayer during the blessing of the holy water which ends rather uniquely:

Per Dominum nostrum . . . qui venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem. “Through our Lord . . . who is about to come to judge the living and the dead, and the world through fire.”

It was just as this prayer had concluded that, out of the corner of my eye, I see Clara’s head engulfed in flames! Not a moment later, she snatches the mantilla from her head in an effort to free herself of the fire, and then stamps out with her hand the remaining flames in her hair.

You see, much to her chagrin and much to our bemused sympathy, Clara had set her hair on fire with the candle she was holding in her hand. Now I think that there are two ways one can look at this incident: either she was the object of some special divine judgment and warning - perhaps for things that she had said on this blog - or she received a sign of her purity and virtue, having survived this trial by fire with no more damage than some singed eyelashes. I am firmly convinced that the facts more readily admit of the latter explanation.

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As he had last year, the Easter Bunny visited us during the night while we slept (briefly) overnight in Scranton between the Easter Vigil Mass and the Easter morning Mass. His ministrations were perhaps even more welcome (and needed) this year than last on account of the very late night tour of the countryside surrounding Scranton which Iosephus shared with Iacobus, Clara, Ericus, and Catharina Oxoniensis. We do hereby tender our thanks to the Bunny. Unfortunately, I’ve been enjoying the candy so much (and Catharina Oxoniensis’ besides) that I’m afraid it won’t last me through the octave!

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Unless I missed something in the traddie news, the 37% of us who thought that the so-called “Motu Proprio” would come before Easter were wrong, despite being the majority view of those who were so kind as to participate in our poll. So much the worse for majorities! I’m inclined to think that a few devious persons snuck in their votes during the Triduum and after Maundy Thursday when the question was pretty well settled. Now I read in Le Monde (via Rorate Caeli) that some liberal editorialist thinks that the motu proprio freeing the old rite of the Mass will come in May. This is getting tiring . . . yet what else can we do but wait and pray? We can thank God, though, that at least we are in a position, because of this Benedictine pontificate, to be sitting on the edges of our seats. By this point, though, it’s probably wise not to be sitting too far forward.

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Mark Steyn frequently says that it’s the liberals, the gays, the feminists, et cetera in Europe who ought to be especially worried about a Muslim takeover. As for Steyn himself, as he says, since he’s already pretty socially conservative, he’ll just grow his beard a little longer and otherwise try to stay under the radar. But in an article this month in the Atlantic, Nadya Labi reports that homosexuals are doing pretty well for themselves under the government of the only officially wahhabi state in the world, Saudi Arabia. Though the regime’s religious police do not tolerate public displays of “gayness”, they are apparently content to let what goes on behind closed doors remain private.

Frankly, I’m disappointed in the laxity of our wahhabi brethren. Clara suggests that this could be of a piece with a generally indifferent attitude towards sexual immorality within Islam. Labi notes in her article that the prohibitions against homosexual acts in the Koran and in the sayings of the Prophet are light or ambiguous. Another point of the article is that many of the men in Saudi Arabia engaging in homosexual acts don’t consider themselves to be homosexuals; it’s something one does, perhaps as a phase, or for a time, not something that one is; so these men are saying of themselves. Very strict prohibitions against unmarried men and women mixing in public or going some place where it’s understood they’ll be alone together also apparently factor into this situation.

Well, now we’ll know the reason if both San Francisco and Riyadh are simultaneously deluged with brimstone.

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Ambrosii Patri qui semper nos tractabat comissime humanissimeque: we extend our very warm congratulations and our prayers upon the occasion of his reception into the Church! We were all excited as we discussed it after the Easter Vigil Mass and only irked that Ambrosius hadn’t told us sooner. Illa familia corde uno menteque nunc vivit. Perhaps there are few enough today who have this blessing. Do not forget to treasure this gift!