Blogger's note: The Blogspot application can at times be very buggy and today was one of those "bad blog" days. The following post contains extra spaces between lines and unfixable page justification (centered text as opposed to left edge orientation) that I just can't seem to overcome. Accept my apologies for the unorthodox appearance.
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Clear Creek Monastary
2009 Ordination
Larry Bethel, brother of Fr. Bethel of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek (Benedictine monastery) in Oklahoma, sent these beautiful pictures of the June 2009 ordinations at the monastary. Follow this link to view all pics.
Larry Bethel, brother of Fr. Bethel of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek (Benedictine monastery) in Oklahoma, sent these beautiful pictures of the June 2009 ordinations at the monastary. Follow this link to view all pics.
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Reformation Martyrs
Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More
By Stephanie Mann
Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More
By Stephanie Mann
Discussing the lives and careers of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More, Knight in my book Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation I highlight both what they had in common and what distinguished them from one another.
One thing they certainly have in common is their June 22nd memorial on the universal Roman Calendar. In England it is celebrated as a Feast, in honor of their importance to English Catholics. On June 22 in 1535 Bishop John Fisher was beheaded, having been found guilty of treason. Thomas More was beheaded 14 days later for the same reason. As an example of fine historical irony, the Church of England honors Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher on its Calendar of Saints--on July 6, the date of More’s execution--as “Reformation Martyrs”.
They both demonstrated firm defense of Catholic doctrine against the reformers on the Continent presenting systematic apologetics, referring to the Fathers of the Church and Sacred Tradition to defend the role of the Church in salvation, the ordained priesthood, the Seven Sacraments, the primacy of the Pope, prayer for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, and devotions like intercessory prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints in heaven.
They were both scholarly humanists at the forefront of learning. They were friends of the famed classicist Erasmus of Rotterdam and John Colet, the Dean of St. Paul’s in London. More was famous for his Utopia and renowned for educating his daughters just as well as his sons in the Liberal Arts. Fisher founded Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge to improve the education and formation of priests and invited Erasmus to teach Greek at Cambridge.
Although they shared a common call to personal holiness, demonstrated through prayer, asceticism, and charity, they had different vocations. Those different vocations explain their different responses to the crucial issue of their times: Henry VIII’s desire for a legitimate male heir. To achieve this goal Henry was convinced that he needed to be released from his first marriage to his brother Arthur’s widow Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, a noble woman whom he desired, but who refused to become his mistress like her sister had been. Henry petitioned Pope Clement VII to revoke the dispensation he had received in order to marry Catherine and declare that marriage null.
John Fisher was an ordained bishop of the Catholic Church; pastor of his diocese, teacher of the Truths of the Catholic Faith. Thomas More, although he’d considered a vocation as a cloistered religious among the Carthusians of the Charterhouse in London, was a married man and a father, active in the secular sphere as a lawyer, judge, diplomat, and government official.
So when Henry VIII, having exhausted his efforts for an annulment from Rome, decided to make himself the Supreme Head and Governor of the Church in England, thus appropriating the power to annul his own marriage, Bishop Fisher opposed him. Alone among the bishops, whom Henry threatened, fined, and harassed, he would not accept Henry’s new role. Furthermore, he took Catherine of Aragon’s side, serving as her counselor and comparing himself to John the Baptist in his role of defending the sanctity of marriage. If he was John the Baptist, Henry was Herod and Anne Boleyn was Herodias--not very complimentary comparisons!
Thomas More was not open about his opposition to Henry’s actions. He accepted the position of Chancellor after the removal of Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, on the grounds that he would not be involved in Henry’s “Great Matter”. It is surely a sign of Henry’s respect for him that he accepted More’s terms. Thomas Cromwell, who would eventually succeed him as Chancellor (and follow him to the chopping block) did Henry’s bidding.
As Robert Bolt depicts in A Man for All Seasons, More was careful never to tell anyone, even his wife, what he thought about the divorce and remarriage. He resigned as Chancellor when it was clear his efforts in that office and his influence on the king had come to naught; he went into retirement and kept his peace, hoping to be left in peace.
But Henry was not content just with achieving his goals--divorcing Catherine, marrying Anne, taking over the Church, dissolving the monasteries--he wanted assent to what he had done, requiring bishops, abbots, nobles and officials to swear oaths assenting to his supremacy in the Church and the nullity of his first marriage. When Fisher and More refused they were imprisoned in the Tower of London, enduring discomfort and constant pressure to take the oaths. They were both tried and found guilty of treason through the trickery and perjury of one Richard Rich.
They benefited from a sort of mercy from Henry VIII, as their sentences to being hung, drawn, and quartered were commuted to mere beheading. They shared a calm and prayerful attitude on the scaffold. Their executions permanently damaged Henry’s reputation at the time and throughout history.
One final distinction needs to be addressed: Although Thomas More is better known through Bolt’s play and the award-winning 1966 movie, John Fisher deserves our attention. His efforts to refute Luther and his eloquence as a preacher should be studied more intently. (Ignatius Press offers his Exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms as a good starting point.) St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, pray for us.
Stephanie A. Mann is author of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation. She will be on the “Son Rise Morning Show” heard on KAHS, at 6:20 a.m. Central time, Monday, June 22 to discuss Sts. John Fisher and Thomas More on their memorial. Check her website for a link to the pod cast after the show.
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Relics
Classification
Relics of Christian Saint’s fall into categories: the First Class Relic is the body or a portion of the body of a Saint (bone, flesh, or hair). These are considered so precious that they are rarely entrusted to individuals, but are placed in Faith Communities.
The Second Class Relic is an item or piece of an item used by the Saint while on the body (clothing, Bible, Breviary, Mass vestments, and so on). Again, Second Class Relics are considered so precious that they are rarely entrusted to individuals, but are placed in Faith Communities.
Third Class Relics typically fall into 2 categories. The first category is a piece of cloth touched to a First or Second Class Relic of the Saint. The second category, in cases where there is no known existing relic of a saint, the cloth has been touched to the shrine of the saint. Generally, the Third Class Relic is a piece of cloth, but it need not be, as long as the item so touched conveys Holiness and is touched with the intent that it be a Third Class Relic. Third Class Relics may be given to individuals, and may be sold. Fourth Class Relics are virtually the same as Third Class Relics and may be sold also.
The Third Class Relics on the Medals we use are the same Third Class Relics you would purchase if you traveled to the Shrine of the Saint and purchased a Third Class Relic there. On the back of each medal you will find the small piece of cloth set in red, which is the relic itself. Around the relic is engraved “EX INDUMENTIS” Latin for touched cloth. These medals are all made in Italy.
Relics, when properly reverenced can be powerful Sacramentals and they are not to be taken lightly. These precious gifts from our Holy Saints can afford us much protection from harm. However, these Relic Medals should always be blessed by a Deacon or Priest of the Roman Catholic Church in order for them to become Sacramentals.
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Relics and Altar Stones at St. Anthony Church Part II
Recently while changing out the statues (the Risen Christ statue and St. Anthony) above the altar (see Post #79 ) the conversation came around to the altar stones and their embedded relics in the altars at St. Anthony . I wondered if information existed as to whose relics were in the altar stones.
Being the curious sort, and history buff, I started making inquiries and was eventually directed to Camilla Hartman, Parish Historian.
Her response:
"Unfortunately we cannot have concrete answers, as the majority of our old historical information stored in our Franciscans' rectory was thrown out after Fr. Faran and Fr. Bernard were transferred out in 1988 and the rectory was taken over by the Shelter. Thus, most of our primary sources of information were irretrievably lost. Without those, validating the presence of relics would have to rely on memory or tradition exclusively, neither a totally reliable basis for valid historical facts.
But you raise an interesting question, one I asked of Fr. Faran, our last Franciscan pastor, when working on the 1987 Centennial Book. My recollection from Fr. Faran's response was that there was a St. Anthony relic in the old altar stone. When the new altar was built for the 2005 Restoration, the old altar stone was encased beneath it. (Fr. Pham has stated that the new rule no longer requires us to encase the holy stone.) I also remember that Fr. Bernard told me that "in the old days" relics were often placed in cornerstones. We have two cornerstones in our church on the NW corner; the first (facing First Street) is from the original St. Boniface church. Our originally German parish was first named St. Boniface in 1887, then the name changed to St. Anthony sometime in the 1890's once the Franciscan Order took charge of the parish. I would like to think there may be a relic of St. Boniface also in that old cornerstone; but without any primary sources to verify that, it is only conjecture. There is also a 1902 St. Anthony cornerstone at the same location. Whether there is another St. Anthony relic there can only be conjecture.
I had emailed Fr. Pham(Pastor of St. Anthony) your questions and am also copying this answer to him, so if I misstate anything he can correct it. He did state that "I believe relics are in both the cross and the 'golden relic case' used for the blessing after the Novena to St. Anthony every Tuesday." So there is definitely that tradition in the parish.
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Light of the East
EWTN Radio
Blogger's note: Every Sunday after Mass on my 30 to 45 minute drive home, I tune into KAHS 1360, EWTN Catholic Radio on my AM dial and listen to Light of the East, an hour long show on the Eastern Rite Catholic Church. I love this show as it showcases and teaches all about the beautiful Eastern Church and Divine Liturgy. Unfortunately I am not sure what time it actually starts...I think at 10:00 a.m. (though EWTN lists show times as 4:30a.m. and 6:30 p.m. on Sundays and 11:30 p.m. on Wednesdays).
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Join our hosts Fr. Michael Sopoliga and Fr. Joseph Bertha, two Ruthenian priests, as they explore the Eastern churches of the Catholic Church. Through discussion, photos and chant we will better be able to follow the Holy Father in his expressed desire that the Church breathe with "two lungs."
"The light of the East has illuminated the universal Church, from the moment when a ‘rising sun’ appeared above us (Lk 1:78): Jesus Christ, our Lord, whom all Christians invoke as the Redeemer of man and the hope of the world." -Orientale Lumen
Read Pope John Paul’s Apostolic Letter: "Light of the East" Orientale Lumen in the EWTN Document Library.
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The Roman Missal
Notes on the New Translation of the Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia
(from the August 2005 Newsletter – © 2008 USCCB)
As you may know, the Roman Missal is being retranslated into English, and there will be several changes in some of the prayers and responses of the Mass. Below is an article from the Bishop's Committee on Divine Worship, which gives us some insight into some of the changes that are coming.
...AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT
Perhaps the most common dialogue in the Liturgy of the Roman Rite consists of the greeting :
Dominus vobiscum
et cum spiritu tuo
Since 1970, this has been translated as:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
As a part of the revised translation of the Roman Missal, now taking place, the translation of this dialogue has been revised, to read:
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Since it is clear that the change to “and with your spirit” is a significant and wide ranging change in a longstanding liturgical practice, the following questions are provided to clarify the reasons for the change and the meaning of the dialogue itself.
1. Why has the response et cum spiritu tuo been translated as and with your spirit?
The retranslation was necessary because it is a more correct rendering of et cum spiritu tuo. Recent scholarship has recognized the need for a more precise translation capable of expressing the full meaning of the Latin text.
2. What about the other major languages? Do they have to change their translations?
No. English is the only major language of the Roman Rite which did not translate the word spiritu. The Italian (E con il tuo spirito), French (Et avec votre esprit), Spanish (Y con tu espíritu) and German (Und mit deinem Geiste) renderings of 1970 all translated the Latin word spiritu precisely.
3. Has the Holy See ever addressed this question?
In 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published an instruction entitled, Liturgiam authenticam, subtitled, On the Use of Vernacular Languages in the Publication of the Books of the Roman Liturgy. The instruction directs specifically that: “Certain expressions that belong to the heritage of the whole or of a great part of the ancient Church, as well as others that have become part of the general human patrimony, are to be respected by a translation that is as literal as possible, as for example the words of the people’s response Et cum spiritu tuo, or the expression mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa in the Act of Penance of the Order of Mass.”
4. Where does this dialogue come from?
The response et cum spiritu tuo is found in the Liturgies of both East and West, from the earliest days of the Church. One of the first instances of its use is found in the Traditio Apostolica of Saint Hippolytus, composed in Greek around AD 215.
5. How is this dialogue used in the Liturgy?
The dialogue is only used between the priest and the people, or exceptionally, between the deacon and the people. The greeting is never used in the Roman Liturgy between a non-ordained person and the gathered assembly.
6. Why does the priest mean when he says “The Lord be with you”?
By greeting the people with the words “The Lord be with you,” the priest expresses his desire that the dynamic activity of God’s spirit be given to the people of God, enabling them to do the work of transforming the world that God has entrusted to them.
7. What do the people mean when they respond “and with your spirit”?The expression et cum spiritu tuo is only addressed to an ordained minister. Some scholars have suggested that spiritu refers to the gift of the spirit he received at ordination. In their response, the people assure the priest of the same divine assistance of God’s spirit and, more specifically, help for the priest to use the charismatic gifts given to him in ordination and in so doing to fulfill his prophetic function in the Church.
8. What further reading could you suggest on this dialogue?For those who wish to pursue this issue from a more scholarly perspective, they might consult:
J.A. Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: its Origins and Development, trans. F.A. Brunner C.Ss.R. (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 363.
Michael K. Magee, The Liturgical Translation of the Response “Et cum spiritu tuo”: Communio 29 (Spring 2002) 152-171.
W.C. Van Unnik, “Dominus Vobiscum:” The Background of a Liturgical Formula: A.J.B. Higgins (ed.), New Testament Essays (Manchester, University Press, 1959) 270-305.
1 Liturgiam authenticam, no. 56.
2 Liturgiam authenticam, no. 56
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Email A Traditional Catholic Postcard to Your Loved Onesfisheaters.comhttp://www.fisheaters.com/postcards.html#send
At Fisheaters.com you can send a traditional Catholic E-card free of charge! You can personalize it and include music if you'd like. Very nice!
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Random ThoughtsPersonal Reflection:The Promise RERUN
Blogger's note: Well it's time for a janitor to varnish the floors again. I hope you enjoy this rerun from 2008, Post #38.
The smell was the first thing I noticed, then the darkness. Both stopped me in my tracks and I waited while my eyes adjusted and I breathed in the smell of the building. I knew that smell from long ago…it was the smell of wood, plaster, brick and mildew. It was the smell of decades old varnish and chalk dust…of spilt milk and rubber balls....of dirty sneakers and teacher's sweet perfume...It was the smell of St. Mary's Catholic school and I found it not unpleasant.
On this particularly glorious June day it was my job, as a part time janitor, to varnish the 100 year old wood floors of St. Mary's school and it was very early morning. The sun was already reflecting on the cross atop the steeple, but as I stepped into the hallway of the school it was silent and dark with shadows of dark brown and faded white…like an old photo on your grandmother’s dresser.Immediately out of instinct, or a childhood of forged manners, I quieted myself...softened my stride, turned off my iPod and closed my phone and the text message I was sending.I had not been in the school in 41 years.
I hadn't attended class here, but I spent time here in catechism and in preparation for my first communion in the church next door. Hello old school.I set my equipment down, my mops and handles, and the backbreaking bucket of goo I was to spread on the old tattered floor, and looked around curiously. The dark wainscoting rose to nearly my height as it stretched upward towards the 12 foot ceilings...high ceilings to displace the summer heat. I flipped the old light switch and it made that old mechanical click that one never hears anymore. It echoed down the quiet hallway into the four big classrooms divided by the central hall and a smaller perpendicular hall that led to the restrooms. Above the doors the old vent windows were open, or more accurately, stuck open by time and stubbornness and the single bulbs glowed dim in the hall above original glass domes...the kind of light fixtures you see on antique shows.
I entered each classroom, turning the metal knobs above the skeleton key holes, two creaky doors to each room, pulled the long chains to the ceiling fans and was generally not interested in starting work.
I sat on the bucket of goo in the hall (gee a cup of coffee would be nice) and thought of the long day ahead...moving entire classrooms contents to one side of the room to varnish, then moving it all back to the other side to varnish, was a daunting task. So I dawdled some more and thought I heard the sound of children laughing ("nah, that had to be outside"), then I imagined I heard the rustling of skirts and soft shoes ("no way, that's just the ceiling fans") and I strained to hear what I really only imagined...but only heard car doors slamming at the courthouse across the street, rolling trains, and the occasional conversation of passersby. But as I sat, somewhere in the soft breeze of the ceiling fans and the floating dust in the soft light, the old school seemed to whisper to me, somehow beckoning me.
Childhood memories of sweet innocence, scraped knees, Schwinn bicycles and white undershirts (t-shirts nowadays) flooded my brain, neurotransmitters dancing crazily with memories of 13 oz. Levis, Romper Room and baseball caps. In my imagination the old school had recognized me ("I remember you...do you remember me?...why don't you see if that sweater you left here in 1966 is still hanging on the hook?...boy your Mom was mad, it was a brand new sweater, the second one you lost that year!...remember when you made your first confession and had to makeup sins because you couldn't think of any? Do you still have that dog..?")
As I sat on the bucket I realized that the school and I were getting re-acquainted...or rather, I was being re-acquainted with my childhood self…and it was good.I thought of myself as a boy, a little Catholic in training, full of exuberance for life and love and Mom and Dad and Jesus and the Saints. I thought of those lessons from the catechism we learned, or rather was drilled into us.....on life and God's grace, Jesus' sacrifice and Mary Our Mother. We learned scary things such as consequence and hell, sin and virtue (yes it was scary to think of the work it took to be good!).
Most notably I remember the original promise...the original promise of eternal love of Holy Catholic Church and her bridegroom, our Savior Jesus Christ. It was a promise of always being there in protection and salvation, of judgment and punishment...being there when the lights were turned off at night...when the peacocks down the street would let loose their mournful cries in the evening (I always thought they were crying in their drawn out way "help, help").
"The promise" would be there in my mothers loving arms when I would wake in the morning and in the French toast I got for breakfast. That promise of love and guardianship would accompany us when we walked the brick streets downtown for vanilla phosphates and returned with us as we walked the Santa Fe tracks home. And it would be there when I stole the neighbor girl’s ice cream and got whipped for it.That original promise was with me as I knelt at the communion rail at seven years old and got sprinkled with the ice cream scooper (!), marveled at the priest in his vestments and received my first communion...and yes I did make up sins at my very first confession.
But oh how foolish we become when we grow up. Along the way I had forgotten the promise and more importantly I had abdicated my role in the promise....the responsibility of reciprocating in the covenant, the promise between God and his people in which God makes certain promises but requires certain behavior in return.
I thought of these things through the morning as I heaved and labored, grunting and sweating, mopping the finish on the old worn floors.
The Blessed Virgin looked down in each classroom; eyes filled with eternal love...hands folded in supplication or open to her children. Her son hung in passion along her side...forever entreating the Father for mercy towards us...and forever awaiting next year’s class of first graders.
The promise was always there...it was always here, and as I performed my humble work I was being reminded of that promise… in the quiet way God whispers to children.I took several water breaks throughout the afternoon, the high ceilings and fans proving to be less and less effective against the heat. As I waited for floors to dry I thought of the thousands of children who had passed these halls...and how the saints who lined the corridors had been silent witness to all of them.
Here was St. Francis holding a bird. There was St. Joseph with the Christ child... a curious shock of gray hair on his head. There...the infant of Prague all grown up (ok, so I really don't kow his name). Here, an odd picture from 1942 of Christ as a child embracing the globe with his finger landing on Greenland. To his European side are Old World buildings, and on his North American side are modern skyscrapers....are those WWII bomber planes flying overhead? A gorgeous old lithograph of Mary our Mother, sitting upon a throne with her beloved son in one hand and a rose in the other. Above her cherubs fly…I note the one with the receding hairline.
Many times throughout life I was to reflect on these very Saints and on the lessons I had heard as a child, but for many, many years I chose to ignore them as I drifted further and further away.
One gets a certain false sense of pride in manliness and intellectualisms, in money and its pursuit...in material desires and lust, in worldliness and vanity. I had committed much sin and had suffered greatly, yes I had found happiness but it always was temporal and the church never seemed to offer any answers. Funny enough, I would always tell people that I was Catholic even if I hadn’t stepped in a confessional in 30 years.
It was about seven years ago that I attended a confirmation mass for my girlfriend. About a month later, something sparked in my conscience…”Mass starts at noon…you should go”…so I did. I couldn't remember when to kneel, stand or spit…and it was nothing but curiosity…until a few days later when that little voice whispered to me again. And I went again, but it would be a long time until I fully gave in…it was a long time till I finally let go….I only fully re-entered the deep end with great trepidation.
The deep end for me took the form of the Traditional Latin Mass (EFLR). I don’t really remember the old liturgy …but I do remember incense and silence, my father in his suit and my mother beating her breast. I remember communion rails and whispered prayers, scarves on women’s heads and mothers white gloves.
Now as an adult had I found it or had it found me? Had it spoke to me in hushed tones like I imagined this old school had been?
The Latin Mass has proven to be my glorious falling…the kind of fall when you step off a diving board …so high up and so scary. But the entry is wonderful and joyful: when you swim you really are just letting go and giving yourself up to the power of the deep water…never really conquering it, just floating on top. You only surrender to the water, you don’t fight it, and in doing so the symbiotic relationship forms…is that not a sort of covenant? Isn’t this like that unspoken original promise?
Post supper and the day is waning; the shadows have crept from one side of the building to the other and now are merging silently…slowly…into twilight. I was backing down the main hallway so as not to paint myself in a corner. As I retreated I shut doors, turned off lights and fans and strained to see…the single bulbs in their fancy globes served only as transitional technology in 1908 over gaslight and lanterns.
As I passed each statue they whispered goodbye in my imagination with their own special message: St. Joseph; “Your father prays for and misses you…keep praying for him…take it easy on the kids…right now they’re acting dumb, but they’ll grow out of it…..
St. Francis; “I like your dogs and chickens!”
Mother Mary; “Say many prayers my child and pray the Rosary often, I am always with you as is my Son”.
Grown up Infant of Prauge; “Um, that’s not my name. Were you NOT paying attention in class?”
Christ on the Cross; “I love you”
The last statue on the way out is not a Saint but an ordinary boy, an altar boy. I can tell that he is the oldest and probably the only original (to the shool) statue left, with glass eyes that seem to twinkle in the dim light. His attire is extremely old fashioned; his surplice has fancy lace adorning the bottom, his sleeves hang low with scalloped edges and his neck line is tied together in a bow. He stands reverently, holding a crucifix in his hands, his eyes gazing in adoration at the crucified Christ.
I like him the best because he is most like me…just an ordinary boy…and sometimes in my heart, especially before God, I am just a boy. I don’t imagine he would say much to me…except this; “do what you can, whatever your station in life to love, serve and adore…in this you hold up your end of the promise”.
Smart kid that altar boy.
I finish my task and pack it all up. The stars are twinkling in the darkening sky and the town is settling in for the night. I wave to Father M. as I load up my equipment. His day is ending as well.
I re-enter the hallway to say goodnight. Again I notice the smell and the darkness and it makes me pause…in one day I have come full circle…a microcosm of the life cycle played out in hours, beginning to end with the promise of another day on the lips of the Almighty. My faith has come full circle as well, from the innocence of childhood, as this old school reminds me, to the “letting go” I have found in the old Latin Mass….I have let go and let the waters of my baptism take me once again……and as I lock the doors and walk away the 100 year old altar boy, from high atop his pedestal, reminds me that God’s promise has and always will stand.
Post Script: "The Promise" in no way reflects official Catholic doctrine but serves only as personal reflection.
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Our Lady of Mantara in Lebanon
The Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Mantara is located in the Greek-Melkite-Catholic Archbishopric of the Diocese of Saida and Deir-El-Kamar, in Lebanon. The word "Mantara" comes from the Arabic root word "Natar" which means to wait.
According to tradition, Mantara is the cave where the Virgin Mary waited for Jesus while he was preaching in Sidon (today's Saida), because Jewish women were not allowed to enter pagan villages. The Gospels testify to the coming of Christ to Sidon, where he healed the daughter of the Canaanite woman (Mt 15: 21-28 and Mk 7: 24-31).
By a stroke of luck the cave was rediscovered by a shepherd who was keeping his flock in the vicinity. While he was sitting under an oak tree, playing his flute, he suddenly heard the squeal of one of his young goats. He ran in the direction of the squeal and found that a kid had fallen into a well (the hole is in the roof of the cave over the altar). He took out his knife to clear the area and open the way through the bramble bushes. He was happy to discover a narrow path leading to the back of a cave! He crawled inside on his hands and knees. His anxiety turned into joy when he found an icon of the Virgin Mary on an ancient altar. Then he rushed out, leaving his flock, and ran to announce the good news to the villagers of Maghdouche.
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