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Book Cover for Novena to St. Paul the First Hermit

New booklet for the Novena to St. Paul the First Hermit

16 September 202221 October 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

So for a bit of background, in the Order of St. Paul the First Hermit, we keep a Novena to our Heavenly Patron, St. Paul of Thebes, for the nine days before his external Solemnity (that being the Sunday after the 15th of January). This Novena consists primarily of two hymns about him sung on alternative days. So naturally, these have been translated into several languages, including English.

I have collected together in this booklet (that I am hoping to get printed soon) both the English and Latin versions of these hymns. So what I did for this book of note is:

I typeset the music for it using LilyPond. However, I had already done that a while ago for the printing of the English version of the Order’s prayer book.
I made a literal translation of the hymns from Latin, as the previous version was more focused on musical qualities (also included).
I also found (ok was sent by someone hoping I would do something with them) a few versions of the music for the hymns arranged as three-part melodies. I have never heard any of these sung. I am hoping that putting them together and getting them reprinted in this book might prompt others to try and sing them. Oh, and I typeset the gregorian chant using Gregorio.
The document was put together with LaTeX, a software system that uses a structured markup system with a heavy dose of macros. LaTeX is fantastic. It makes me almost want to cry when I see something done in MS Word. But maybe that is me being a little OCD. I want consistency in how everything is formatted in a document: heading style, font and font size used etc. For Word, you have to try to get it right. With LaTeX, you have to try to get it wrong.

Here is the result, if anyone wants to look at it. Or you can have a look at a few of the interesting pages in the images below.

Novena to St. Paul the First Hermit, in both the English and the Latin

Novena to St. Paul First Hymn — Novena to St. Paul Image

The Finished Rosary to be used with a Religious Habit

Knotted Rosary for a Religious Habit

7 September 202221 October 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

So this Knotted Rosary is like the ones I did before, only larger. I used four cords instead of two, treating each pair of black and white as one. Doing so made it much bigger. Large enough that it is the right size for a monk to wear on the side of a religious habit.

The Process

I used about 40m of cord for this, meaning each strand is about 10m long. Before I started, I tied a knot measuring how long the cord was before and after to decide how much to use. It turned out it was about 10cm, so needing to tie about 70 knots plus the sections between meant just over 8m for each strand. Rounded up to play it safe, but at the end of the project, I can say 8m would have been perfect.

With the cord cut, I tied it in the middle with another scrap of cord (you can see the red cord in some of the photos below) and started weaving the first section. I used what on YouTube I saw called a “four-strand round braid”. I got a lot better at this as I went. You can see in the photo where it shows the rosary being joined in a loop. One section is significantly better than another. To do the braid is easy. First, arrange the cords black-white-black-white and then start swapping the position of the two black, then the two white, and repeating.

The Knots

The knots were a pain, and I probably will never repeat this, even though I was happy with the result. I had to wrap the cords up because 40m cord loves to get into knots. This meant I had to push these cord reels through the knot loops as I was tying them, which was tricky and messy. It was challenging to do unless I was sitting at my desk.

Also, the knots did not look good if I let the two cords I was treating as one get wrapped around each other inside the knot, so I spent a lot of time straightening them out as I tightened the knots. Another difficulty was my use of four strands that kept trying to wrap around each other unless I kept them in position on the desk as I was working. It was often just more frustrating than enjoyable.

Finished Result and Photos

So very happy with what I got, but this will be a one-off. Not the last of the Rosaries that I plan to share here. I got four pairs I want to make from beads and chains and a few others using much more straightforward knots with beads.

Ruins of the Monastery of the Holy Cross

Working through some Latin

31 August 202222 October 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

Now my Latin is far from perfect, and I don’t consider myself much of a scholar of it. However, I did study it for a few years. So with a bit of help from a Latin Word Study Tool and one of several dictionaries, I can get through it. I have more than one partly finished translation project. However, tonight a fellow religious sent me something short.

It is about when some monasteries were destroyed during the Turisk invasion of Hungry, where the Pauline Fathers were founded. The image attached to this post is not the main monastery being talked about but one of those that burned down and was never rebuilt.

Multa enim monasteria ordinis nostri in hoc periculo desolata sunt. Nam monasterium principale et caput ordinis heremitarum in Hungária supra Budam ad honorem sancti Laurentii || fundatum, amaenissimum et totius regni solatium delectabile omnino desolaverunt. In ecclesia tabulae splendidae, chorus mirifice et sumptuose fabricatus, organum elegans et omnia alia igne vehementi conflagrata sunt, et sic testudo sanctuarii corruit. Altaria destruxerunt, imagines frustatim conciderunt, sepulchra suffoderunt, lapidem superiorem tumbae marmoreae sancti Pauli subtiliter sculptum violenter deposuerunt et in tres partes fregerunt. Habitacula monasterii egregia et omnes officinae igne consumpta solo sunt prostrata. Utensilia omnia fregerunt, victualia omnia consumpserunt. Decem diebus in monasterio pausaverunt, et omnes angulos, omnia latibula perlustraverunt, suffoderunt, destruxerunt. Et nullibi tantum saevierunt sicut in hoc monasterio. Et ut videtur usque ad finem mundi nunquam hoc monasterium in pristinum statum reformabitur. Verum protegente Deo et sancto Paulo ornamenta ecclesiastica omnia permanserunt illaesa in secreto loco, quo fratres absconderant, et in capella sancti Pauli ignis non fuit accensus, nisi per valvam exterius in parte, sed tamen alia omnia sunt destructa. In libraria usque ad mille florenos libri concremati sunt. Postquam autem audierant fratres profligationem Hungarorum, corpus sancti Pauli eremitae quam citissime tulerunt, et ad Trinchinium, castrum fortissimum waywodae Transilvanensis deportaverunt. Eodem tempore viginti quinque fratres occisi sunt a Tureis, aliqui etiam miro modo vulnerati. Monasteria vero undecim combusta et desolata sunt.

For many of our Order’s Monasteries were destroyed in this period. They abandoned the principal and head monastery of the Order of Hermits in Hungry, which was above the Buda, founded in honour of Saint Laurentius, the most lovely and delightful solace of all the kingdom. In the Church, the splendid panels, the wonderful and expensively built choir, the beautiful organ and everything else were violently burned by fire. So the dome of the sanctuary collapsed. The altars they destroyed, the images they cut to pieces, the tombs they dug up, the finely carved stones above the tomb in memory of Saint Paul they violently pulled down and broke into three parts. The excellent living quarters of the monastery and all the offices were consumed by fire and strewn on the ground. They broke all the utensils and consumed all the provisions. They stayed in the monastery for ten days. They searched, pulled down and destroyed every corner and every hiding place. And nowhere were they so violent as in this monastery. And this it will be seen that even until the end of the world, this monastery will never be restored to its former state. True, under the protection of God and Saint Paul, all the ecclesiastical ornaments remained unharmed in a secret place where the brothers had hidden them, and no fire was kindled in the chapel of Saint Paul except through a folding door on the outer side, but everything else was destroyed. Books worth up to a thousand florins were piled up in the libraries. And after the brethren had heard from the scattered Hungarians, they took the body of St. Paul the hermit as quickly as possible and conveyed it to Trinchinium, the strongest fortress of the Transylvanian wayward. At the same time, twenty-five brothers were killed by the Turks, and others were wounded bizarrely. However, eleven monasteries were burned and lay desolate.

Lovely 360° Panoramic VR Photos

30 August 20228 September 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

Photography

Photography is something that I enjoy but don’t get time or opportunities to do nearly as much as I would like. So what I want to share here is an area of photography that is growing in popularity, making 360° Panoramic VR Photos. Have a play with the above, you can move around in any direction, left-right, up-down, and move between the images.

You can even do this on your phone these days, but the chances are the results will not be optimal. For that, the focal point of your camera lens needs to be perfectly stationary as you take the photos.

The Setup

My setup is this. I got a Nikon D3100 (the entry-level DX model from 12 years ago) and a tripod with a special bracket for these photos. The bracket allows me to rotate the camera around the focal point of the lens. This is important, as mentioned before, to avoid parallax (where things in the foreground move relative to objects in the background). With the lens you choose, the lower the focal length of the lens, the fewer photos you will need. Mine is 10-24mm, which requires a minimum of 16 pictures, 8 angled up every 45° (again, the bracket helps with this) and another 8 angled down. You can also do a final one pointing straight up.

There are some other things to pay attention to. You need to keep the focus and lighting consistent between shots, so with a DLSR, that means turning everything to manual mode. The aperture needs to be closed down as much as possible to get everything in focus, so the shutter speed often needs to go right up. I remember doing some photos in a church with a 2-second shutter speed.

Merging the Photos

To give an idea of the result of the photo shoot, you end up with a set of photos like the ones below for each location where you took the photos.

Penrose Park 360° Panaranic VR Photo Component

This is, of course, not what you want to share. So all these photos need to be merged into a single equirectangular image. For that, a program like 3DVista Stitcher 4, to name the one I have, is required. It takes the photos and tries to match them up. Sometimes it needs help if, for example, there is a large area of solid colour, but it makes that relatively simple. The result is then a single large photo. With the setup that I am using, it comes to about a 72MP image.

Publishing the Final Photo

The easiest way to share these photos is then on Google Street view. You can import them into the mobile app, fill in some details and publish them.

Other options are becoming more available, which is what started this post. I took these photos I was showing off here over four years ago, but I am comparing solutions for putting them online without Google Street View. I would also like to add more to the tour that is put together than what Google allows for. I have found a solution I like and have used above. Just not sure I can afford the pro version (the free limits to a very small number of images). Sigh…

God Bless till next time!

Coat of Arms Patch on a Stunning Chasuble

28 August 20228 September 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

The other day I showed off the Coat of Arms patch I had made. It was not the first time I had stitched this out. I did so previously and sent the result to a priest interested in using it.

So above is what he has done with it. He attached it to the bottom of a white Roman Chasuble. In this case, the priests here are celebrating a Mass for the Black Madonna’s solemnity just a few days ago on the 26^th of August.

This vestment gives an example of what I want to achieve with the machine embroidery I am undertaking. I aim to have many vestments, and other liturgical items (like the Black Madonna Palls I shared) customised to the Pauline Fathers.

Migrating Websites to WordPress

18 August 20228 September 2022Monk at KeyboardLeave a comment

So this is a little more of the @keyboard stuff. I have started to migrate the websites I manage to WordPress.

Initially, I was using a platform called Django, which offers to make coding up a custom backend for a site easier (it uses the Python programming language, which I like using). It sounded like a good idea at the time, but last few years had very little time to advance what I had done, and WordPress has advanced — a lot. So time to make the change. One of the main things I am hoping is it makes it easier for others to add content to the sites (one thing I wouldn’t say I like doing).

The first site done is paulinefathers.org.au which is for the Australian Province of the Order of St. Paul the First Hermit.

Pauline Fathers Home Page scrolled down to the middle. — Pauline Father’s Home Page

The main thing was picking a base theme (I used Ultra) and making a child theme of it to customise and bring its appearance back to what it was before—than importing all the content. The last part was not much fun—a lot of copy and paste. However, I did take the chance to add a little extra content and use better images where possible.

Coding some customisation in PHP

There was also a little of trying to change things to be precisely how I wanted them. For example, trying to get the posts on the home page to line up in a perfect grid — I can be a bit OCD sometimes. So I started a plugin called “My Hacks”, into which I started putting bits of code. For this particular change, I needed to wrap the image in more HTML, which was easy enough once I found the right point to hook into. Here is the code.

function content_view_thumbnail_wrapper($html) {
	$matches = array();
	preg_match('/src="(.*?)"/', $html, $matches);
	return '<span class="pt-cv-thumbnail-outer-wrapper" style="--bg-image:url(' . $matches[1] . ');"><span class="pt-cv-thumbnail-inner-wrapper">' . $html . '</span></span>';
}
add_filter('pt_cv_field_thumbnail_image_html', 'content_view_thumbnail_wrapper', 10, 1);

A simple function that finds the thumbnail link of the <img> tag and then wraps it twice in two <span> tags. The last line then registers the function to hook in at the right moment.

Making it pretty with CSS

After just needed some CSS (what web-pages designs/style is described with and what I edited to customise the theme). I wrote this to go with it.

img.pt-cv-thumbnail {
  width:auto;
  max-height:166px;}

.pt-cv-href-thumbnail {
  width:100%;
  display: inline-block;
  padding:10px;
  border:1px solid #ddd;
  border-radius:5px;
  margin-bottom:10px;
  text-align:center;}

.pt-cv-thumbnail-outer-wrapper {
  width:100%;
  display: inline-block;
  background-size:cover;
  background-image:var(--bg-image);}
  
.pt-cv-thumbnail-inner-wrapper {
  backdrop-filter: blur(25px) opacity(0.7);
  width:100%;
  min-height:166px;
  line-height:166px;
  vertical-align: middle;
  display: inline-block;}
  
.pt-cv-thumbnail-outer-wrapper .pt-cv-thumbnail {
  margin-bottom:0px !important;}

This CSS limits the height of the thumbnail image, horizontally or vertically centres the thumbnail and fills the background with a blurred and faded version of the same thumbnail. I like the results. I also applied it to MonkAtKeyboard for if I don’t always use an image with the same height-to-width ratio.

There was more than this, about 100 lines of code, but I have not touched PHP for a while, so it was a little slower. The next site will need a lot more code written, but I will save that for another post.

Making a New Coat of Arms Patch

6 August 20225 September 2022Monk at Keyboard1 Comment

This pattern of the Pauline Coat of Arms is one of the most complex embroidery designs I have created. At this size, the pattern needed over 90k stitches. In addition, it uses a lot of raised satin stitch, which means it does a lot of stitches over the top of each other to create a raised effect. I also used a lot of metallic thread for the embellishments around the edge.

You can also see I cut it out of what it was stitched onto. So the patch can be attached to something else later.

Making Unique Black Madonna Palls

28 July 20228 September 2022Monk at Keyboard4 Comments

These Black Madonna Palls are part of a project I have been working on bit by bit for a while. It started when my mother asked me to do something with her new Embroidery machine. It was all computer automated, which was not so great for her, but perfect for me. So I set out on my mission to make some customised vestments. I just had to save every penny I could to get my machine. This post is about just a little bit of that project.

The creative part of the project is designing the patterns. I create the patterns on the computer with a program (with no sowing machine needed). You draw your shapes, pick your colours, stitch types and effects, and even the direction the stitches go in. It is kind of like drawing something in Photoshop, except because it is a mechanical process to “print” it out, you have to be aware of some pitfalls. Like picking a high stitch density will make a nice rich colour. However, it will pull the fabric more, causing things to misalign. I have been slowly learning those pitfalls through trial and error.

Anyway, here are some photos of it in progress on the machine. I like how it looks once the gold thread starts being done. Unfortunately, the gold thread is a pain to work with, as it is more fragile and breaks easier. So I end up having to rethread a few times. It is worth it, though.

Pressing Start to See the Result

I also recorded some of it in the video. The video has been sped up 8x.

The machine only can take one colour at a time, but it guides you through what colour when with its little display. It also tells you a lot of other information like time remaining and has a progress bar for the stitches.

Making the Paul

Turning the design into a pall for a chalice, I need a pocket to put a plastic or cardboard square into. So everything out of the hoop, tape another piece in place so it will not move, and a third to cover the gap. Put the original back in the frame, make sure it all lines up, and it is back on the machine to do a border.

A second piece to cover the gap — Putting the backing into the hoop

Finished Black Madonna Palls

Then we have a final result. After that, we need to trim the edges and repeat.

Completed Black Madonna Pall — The pall edging completed

Palls are just a nice-sized project for testing patterns while making something useful. There is a lot more where this is going.

Special Knotted Rosaries

21 July 202224 August 2022Monk at Keyboard1 Comment

This is my first post on a new WordPress site. I was posting a little on Facebook, but I have been trying to avoid social media. So if I set things up correctly, it should also be automatically shared there.

This image is of some Knotted Rosaries that I made. They are using a knot called “Chotki.”

If anyone is interested in trying to make your own, the video I initially followed to learn how to tie these knots was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lTwPCgwj4c&t=110s.

History

There is a fascinating history and facts about those knots typically used in prayer ropes, which I used for these rosaries.

St. Pachomius, in the fourth century, is believed to be the inventor of the prayer rope. They were an aid for illiterate monks to accomplish a consistent number of prayers and prostrations in their cells. Prevcounteds would count their prayers by casting pebbles into a bowl, but this was cumbersome and could not be easily cd about when outside the cell. The rope made it possible to pray the Jesus Prayer unceasingly: “O My Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner”, whether inside the monk’s cell or outside. Following St. Paul’s injunction to “Pray without Ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), the monks prayed this way.

It is said that the method of tying the prayer rope originated from the father of Orthodox monasticism, Saint Anthony the Great. He started by tying a leather rope with a simple knot for every time he prayed “Kyrie Eleison” (“Lord have Mercy”). Annoyingly the Devil would come and untie the knots to throw off his count. He then devised the way – inspired by a vision of the Virgin Mary Theotokos – of tying the knot so that the knots themselves would constantly make the sign of the Cross. Today prayer ropes are still tied using knots containing seven little crosses tied over and over. The devil could not untie it because the Sign of the Cross defeats the devil.

Bracelets

Since it would be a shame to waste any off-cuts of cord, I have been turning those into rosary bracelets. Not that it costs much from where I have been getting it, which is here https://www.koch.com.au/satin-cord