Over at popula.com I’ve written something about a confrère of mine, who was imprisoned on suspicion of high-treason in the Third Reich. He was still alive when I entered the monastery, and I knew him as a very gentle and polite old man.
Today is the Feast of the Crown of Thorns in Heiligenkreuz. The Feast commemorates the solemn translation of the Crown of Thorns to Paris under St. Louis IX. St. Louis gave one thorn to the Babenberg Duke Frederick the Quarrelsome of Austria, who gave it to Heiligenkreuz. Today it is exposed on the altar. There’s a medieval painting of the Sacred Head, crowned with thorns, in a niche our Church that was probably where the reliquary used to be kept. (Now it is kept in the neo-Gothic Sacrament altar).
Here are some pictures of the Good Friday Liturgy in Heiligenkreuz yesterday. The last few pictures show the custom of carrying a veiled monstrance in procession to an altar decorated as a tomb.
