Cathedral of St. Peter, Lisieux

This is effectively the Martin Family's home parish.  Therese received first communion here, and prayed for the repentance of the notorious murderer Pranzini in one of the side chapels here.  

The Cathedral of St. Pierre, Lisieux, Colorsketched.

Interior of the Cathedral

Rear of nave, behind modern central altar.

See here how what I'm sure was once the primary altar, or its location, is now become a rear chapel.

The main altar is at the intersect of the transept and nave, in the round as we are eager to have the sacrifice these days.

The Altar.

Ste. Jeanne d'Arc

St. Peter, in imitation of that in the nave of St. Peter's in Rome.

Notre Dame de Lourdes.

The Tree of Life

And the Candle. Beside Our Lady of Carmel.

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The Basilica of St. Therese de Lisieux

I arrived here on Sunday evening, and have been staying at a pilgrims' hostel as respite from sleeping en plein air.  The basilica was constructed in 1929 just after her beatification, and is quite impressive.  Here I give you a few images therefrom:

View of Basilica from the train station.

The basilica, the tower to the right is dedicated to Louis & Zelie Martin, Therese's parents.

The Basilica's Interior

Opposite Vantage.

Shrine of Therese's relics, on right of nave

And The Candle.

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Pictures of the Day: The Royal Navy, Portsmouth Harbor, England

Another post from my photo backlog:

The Royal Navy has its main base in Portsmouth, on the south coast of England. I love the water and all that floats and flows upon and within it; all boats and ships, warships especially. I grew up reading Horatio Hornblower and other 18th and 19th century naval war stories, and my family has a bit of history with the U.S. Navy. I ought to have joined the Navy, if I had I'd probably still be in the military..  

These were all taken this past week, the night I took the ferry to France:

HMS Warrior Quayside

This here is the first ironclad commissioned by the Royal Navy, the Warrior.

You can't see the more famous historical ship docked in the navy yard there without entering through the gates. I didn't have time to do that, so I only caught a glimpse of Nelson's flagship, the champion of Trafalgar, and the current flagship of the Second Sea Lord, the Victory. It's a 104 gun, triple decked ship of the line. One of the most dangerous warships constructed of its era. I took this from the ferry as we passed out of port:

HMS Victory Quayside

It's kept docked, but is still commissioned, just like the USS Constitution, Old Ironsides (a fifty gun frigate, nowhere near as potent in firepower, but much quicker under sail than the Victory) in Boston.

One last gratuitous ship shot, this one of the Illustrious, which I think is now Britain's only current aircraft carrier. It's a short carrier, that only fields Harrier jump jets and helicopters, but it is still cool:

HMS Illustrious Quayside

There were a clutch of frigates and destroyers docked there in Portsmouth with them, too. My landlubber's eye thought most of them looked pretty well worse the wear, lots of streaming rust and crumby paint jobs. Not as tight and shipshape as the U.S. Navy looks at Bath Ironworks or Norfolk Naval Shipyard, but then few things look as sleek, dangerous and beautiful as a Aegis cruiser being refitted at Bath..



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Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Walsingham

I finally fulfilled a decades long wish this past week, and made my pilgrimage to venerate Our Lady of Walsingham, in Northumberland, England. This is England's national Marian shrine, and one of my favorite icons of Our Blessed Mother. Here's a photo essay therefrom, with succinct comment:

The English Countryside

Not the best shot of the village, but just somebit to give a notion of how quaint..

The Anglicans have taken over the middle of the village, which is very quaint, in that high English tradition of quaintness:

The 20th Century Era Anglican Shrine

The Anglican Shrine's Icon

1st candle

Aide a l'Eglise en Detresse has a storefront there..

My Pasture, Minus the Stallion I Slept With..

This is where I pitched my bivy while there. There was a big horse that they let into it after dark, which concerned me briefly, but we ended up getting along swimmingly, and I slept like a stone.. 

Walked Out Past Great Snoring.  

The restored chapel (burnt by the prots in the 16th Century, rebuilt by a Catholic convert in 1897) is a good mile outside the village center.  I walked out there and back again twice.

Slipper Chapel, The 11th Century Catholic Shrine

Garden Behind the Shrine

2nd candle

Room for Votive Candles

3rd candle

These next two I took with my iphone, because I didn't want rudely to disturb the silence with a shutter click:

The Shrine Chapel

The Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham

Pilgrims at Adoration

And Finally, the Obligatory Self-Portrait.

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Pictures of the Day: Prayers from Knock

So, last week I finally returned to Knock again.  Twenty years ago this year I made my first pilgrimage there, in the fall after I graduated from college.  I walked - and hitch hiked - there from Belfast.  I'd meant to try to make it all the way to Jerusalem by foot that time, but I only actually made it as far as Rome, and that mostly by bus, not foot..

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is all too weak.

This time I've made no such stupid resolutions, and am going to get to as many places as I can, any way I can. Still, I am back on that old path.  I'll write about the genesis of the urge to do this, and other ancillary topics soon. In the meantime, I give you a little photo essay from the shrine up at Knock:

The facade of the original parish church, Msgr. Horan's ugly modernesque basilica in background.

Interior of said parish. Old School Irish Catholic Style.

Chapel of the Apparition, on back of the parish church.

The parish church, from vantage of the basilica.

This is what happens when you give some odd Irishman a camera..

Slightly better, this time.

The promised candle.

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Song of the Day: I Never Seen a Miracle Like that Old Airport Up In Knock..

Did NATO donate the dough me boys, did NATO donate the dough?



Blogger's gotten all squirelly on YouTube, so if that won't play, perhaps then this will:



I actually think the airstrip is more suited to anti-sub warfare in the North Atlantic, especially seeing as how most of the planes that actually ended up taking Qaddafi out flew from Italy..

Still, a song particularly suited to marking my pilgrimage to.. ah, Knock.

Father Horan, from the information desk giftshop:

Poor Old Father Jim's Gone to the Airport in the Sky.. Yet the Msgr.'s Still Very Well Remembered.

And just to clarify, the next field while actually full of rocks, was still quite comfortable. I know because I slept in it.

And on the way back to Dublin we passed by the airport, and while I couldn't get off to take a proper shot of the runway, I did get this:

And it's 88,000 feet!

And that's all I've currently got about that old aerodrome up in Knock. Cheers.



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Hobo Chronicles: Le Conte Continue..

So, as you may have noticed from my last few posts, I am again in Europe.  I flew into Dublin a week and a half ago, spent a couple nights in Dublin, then went to Westport in County Mayo (that's the west coast of the Isle, sort of the Irish version of California, which is to say that it is nothing like California at all, excepting only that the landscape there is stunningly beautiful, which is one of the few things that I utterly adore about Cali, the others being the redwoods, the wildlife, the Asian cuisine, the vineyards, the Mexicans, SS Peter & Paul in Ben Lomond and the mission churches.. All of which is to say that that comparison is somehow despite all that still immensely to Ireland's favor) where I intended to climb Craugh Patrick (St. Patrick's penitential climb, 2500 ft. to where he fasted for 40 days and cast all the demons off the peak, and sent all the snakes from Ireland) but did not. It was way too wet, and I've realized that I really am not much a fan of mountain climbing. I am meant for sea level, and enjoy looking at mountains from down here.

Anyhow, I enjoyed Westport very much. One of its many virtues is that it is a mere 45 minutes or so from Ireland's nation Marian shrine, Knock. I spent one night there, in the rough for the first time this trip. The prior post (that self portrait) is of me at the shrine, in the sanctuary they built on the backside of the local parish church where the apparition of Our Lady, Saint John and St. Joseph and the Lamb on the altar occurred.  There will be another post quite soon with some more pics from Knock.

After this, I crossed the Irish Sea to Wales, and took a train to London, where I caught another train north to the English national Marian shrine at Walsingham. I've always wanted to make a pilgrimage there, ever since I learned of its existence, so the visit was a dream come true. I spent two days there, and debated going to Aylesford, where the Carmelites keep a monastery, where Simon Stock received the brown scapular in the 13th Century. I've worn the scapular for a couple decades now, and shedding it was one of the major reasons I couldn't remain Orthodox. I felt naked without it, I only ever take it off when I'm about to get wet.  I was drawn there, but..

England is way too expensive, and I was feeling the yen to parle some Francais..

So I took the channel ferry here, to Normandy, yesterday. I'm in Ouistreham, which happens to be on the most eastern of the Norman WW II invasion beaches. Upon Sword Beach, specifically, which is where the British and Free French landed. I slept last night in the dunes off the beach, near the ferry terminal here. It's been sublime.. I've been sleeping rough now for over a week, with Army bivy sack and sleeping bag, strung tarp when needed. I've been doing this all over Europe ever since my Junior Year abroad in 1991-2, and it never gets old. Like Hilaire Belloc, mon maitre et inspiration, I just can't get over the yen of humping and hoboing it all over here. I'm now approaching a dozen trips like this, easily more than 100 nights total. I so very love it. Besides being utterly cheap (I'm on the same budget I was in Latin America, trying to keep expenses to 30-40 euro a day, which buys good hotel rooms there, but gets you a bed in a hostel dorm here if you're lucky, and I'd rather sleep outdoors for free, merci bien) it is also way too sweet.

This is where I slept last night:

Slept in that nook there.. with camo bivy, presque invisible, n'est-ce pas?

So, tomorrow I take the bus a town over to Lisieux.  I'm backlogged a couple three posts with pictures, so I'll get to posting about that and Mont St. Michel later this coming week. I'll try to get blogger working for me, by writing posts in advance, dating them to automatically post for me later on.. I can do that, right? Yes, of course right. All the coming three days' posts will be done automatically. I'll post on Ste. Therese and St. Michel on or about Wednesday..

Anyway, for the moment, one more image from the dunes of Normandy:

Du cidre sur le plage..

Well.  That's about all I've got at the moment.  On va souper.



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Self Portrait, Knock

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This Past Night at Matt Malloy's

Not a great image, I was too distracted with the craic to take a good one.  Still, a digital postcard from Matt Malloy's in Westport, Co. Mayo.  Cheers.



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Taking Tea in Dublin

First Breakfast.

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