Some friends and I visited an FSSP parish called St. Anne's this last Sunday. It was a High Mass, and at the consecration when the sanctus bells were ringing, the big church bell outside was rung at the same time. How cool is that? I suppose the neighborhood had no idea what it meant, but what a neat idea to broadcast the miracle that's happening inside to the outside world. Maybe some lapsed Catholic heard it and felt guilty. :)
I read somewhere that in the 15oo's in England it was made illegal to ring a church bell nine times at 6 am, noon, or 6 pm. The Angelus is traditionally sounded at those times with three sets of three bells. So that's how we know that the Angelus was popular in England when it was a Catholic country.
And of course Paul Revere's friend hung a lantern aloft in the belfry arch of the old north tower as a signal light.
I've now exhausted my church bell lore and will end this post.
4 comments:
And it used to be in many parishes that the bell would ring at the time of consecration until "noise pollution" was discovered ;)...Though in small towns I know this tradition still exists.
spc has a bell that gets rung every Sunday morning before the priest enters the small church. This is done so that the confirmation students know to stand up and wake up from their slumber.
They rang the main Church bell at the consecration at the Anglo Catholic parish I attended before jumping the fence.
There have been a couple of C of S parishes here which have been served enforcement noticies under environmental health legislation and clock tower hourly chimes have been restricted in a couple of places as well. Sigh...
This is what they do at the TLM I attend in Singapore. They send--I kid you not--one of the littlest boys to the bell-rope, and we all thank him for his valiant service. (I know this is a super old post, but I thought I'd chime in. Hehe. Enjoying your blog archives very much, and I hope you are well.)
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