Belatedly acknowledged, an award.

Way too late really, an embarrassed yet grateful acknowledgment of the kind nomination of this blog for a Sunshine Award, by my blog companẽro Petrus at Men Are Like Wine.

An obligation of the award is to answer 10 questions from the nominator, and the question will be obvious from the answer.

1. My favourite prayer, apart from the Lord’s Prayer (which really is short, sweet, magisterial and comprehensive), is the aspiration “Lord Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on sinners like me”.
2. Choosing between the EF Mass or the OF Mass in Latin is ultra-topical at present. My answer (such as it is) will be the next (and imminent) post. That’s a bit of a dodge but an honest one.
3. My favourite food is… gosh, this is tough… either T-bone steak medium-rare or roast leg of lamb.
4. My favourite hobby or interest is currently typography. Well, I was asked…
5. Gothic any day; too much baroque makes my eyes bleed.
6. My favourite piece of sacred music is a line-ball call between Allegri’s Miserere or Tallis’ Spem in alium. Both take me to another, and better, place. In a different vein, I could also listen to Gibbons’ This is the Record of John for a long long time indeed.
7. If I could change one in the world today it would be the Mass: a healthy Church relies on a sound liturgy, and a healthy world needs on a healthy Church.
8. My favourite saint is a hard one, but I must plump for my monastic patron, St Hugh of Lincoln. However, St Aloysius is the saint of my youth.
9. While not really a Doctor Who fan (hold down those cries of “heresy!”) my favourite doctors are Jon Pertwee closely followed by Tom Baker.
10. The last book I read is At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson.

The next duty is to nominate 10 blogs (my nominator excluded) for the award. Again a toughie, but these are some of those that always reward a visit, in no particular order:

1. The Sensible Bond: very thoughtful, logical and even-handed.
2. Restless Pilgrim: an English lad whose Catholicism has gone quite American, but he loves the Fathers.
3. Fr Ray Blake’s Blog: a parish priest being faithful in word and deed.
4. LMS Chairman: Dr Joe Shaw’s logic is unassailable and crystal clear, an achievement I envy.
5. Eccles and Bosco is Saved: Not a little hard hitting, but always with a smile, using humour salted with a regard for truth.
6. Eye of the Tiber: Always good for a giggle, but you need to be keeping up with news to get the satire sometimes (as also for Eccles).
7. Protect the Pope: A great source for news and commentary about attacks on the Church.
8. Creative Minority Report: Utterly faithful news and commentary from the USA.
9. A Secular Priest: A young priest set to be a founding father of Brisbane’s nascent Oratory.
10. The St Bede Studio Blog: Can Michael make stunning vestments? Yes, he can.
11. [update] Vultus Christi: I am sneaking this in to complete a monastic decade, something like a baker’s dozen. Dom Mark is prior of a new Benedictine priory in Ireland. He knows his liturgy, and in the most edifying way.

Thanks again to Petrus. He is too kind, as are most of my followers.

As I have been typing, the sun burst out on a forbidding backdrop, with a rainbow emerging. Ominous but wonderful.