Peace be with you.

Others have already noted Bishop Hugh Gilbert's pastoral letter that marks the introduction to parish useage of some of the texts of the new English translation of the Missal. It's style is familiar to those who had opportunity to hear Bishop Hugh preach when Abbot of Pluscarden, or who are familiar with the two published books of his conferences/homilies.

Given his new office as a Bishop, what interests me about the following passage from the pastoral letter is the way in which it at once combines a beauty and poetry of language and a teaching at quite a simple level about the nature of the celebration of the liturgy.

‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ In Christ, the Son of God takes on everything human, except sin, and transforms it. And in the Liturgy this mystery of the Incarnation – the Word becoming flesh – lives on among us. Everything speaks of it. When we gather to worship we come together in a building – not usually in any building, though, but in a church, a building dedicated for worship. The ministers who lead our prayer don’t wear just ordinary clothes, but vestments. We stand, sit or kneel, but each of these postures now has a special meaning. We come together to listen to readings – not any readings though, but words inspired by the Holy Spirit, words that are now the word of God. We gather round a table – but not any table, rather a holy table, an altar. We eat and drink – but not any food or drink, rather bread and wine which have become that holiest of things, the Body and Blood of the Lord, his very Self. In the Liturgy, ordinary things are taken up by Christ and the Church and become vehicles of something greater than themselves. And so it is too with the words, the language, we use in prayer. Christianity has always, to some extent, created its own language. It took the words of ancient Israel or the Greco-Roman world and filled them with a new meaning. And so, in the Liturgy, we use words that carry the resonances of a long tradition, words that express our faith, and are rich with many centuries of experience of the God who has spoken to us in Christ. The new translation of the Missal is very aware of this and tries to be loyal to it. And, once again, when these words are sung, they can lift our hearts even more.

Focolare: Visit of President and Co-President to the UK

Maria Voce (Emmaus, to use the name given to her by Chiara Lubich) is the President of Focolare. She works closely with the movements Co-president Fr Giancarlo Faletti. They are undertaking a visit to Great Britain, their first. The details of their visit can be found here.

The Focolare website has a short account of the history of the movement in the UK, to accompany this visit. I expect that reports of the events during the visit will be posted in due course.

Julian of Norwich Part 4: the hazel nut

In the Short Text, Julian describes a vision that she recieves of a hazel-nut in the palm of her hand. For someone from a scientific background, this  passage represents an interesting meditation on the idea of creation as sustaining in being. But the passage about the hazel nut is placed close to a passage about Our Lady, and it is difficult to read the two passages apart from each other. Together, they place Our Lady at the head of creation, and give to the doctrine of creation a Marian/Christological intent. There is also a hint in the passage of a teaching on union with God that might be more familiar from the writing of St John of the Cross.

And in this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazel-nut, lying in the palm of my hand, and to my mind's eye it was as round as any ball. I looked at it and thought, "What can this be?" And the answer came to me, "It is all that is made". I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly disappear. And the answer in my mind was, "It lasts and will last for ever because God loves it; and in the same way everything exists through the love of God". In this little thing I saw three attributes: the first is that God made it, the second is that he loves it, the third is that God cares for it. But what does this mean to me? Truly, the maker, the lover, the carer: for until I become one substance with him, I can never have love, rest or true bliss; that is to say, until I am bound to him that there may be no created thing between my God and me....

Then God brought our Lady into my mind. I saw her spiritually in bodily likeness, a meek and simple maid, young of age, in the same bodily form as when she conceived. God also showed me part of the wisdom and truth of her soul so that I understood with what reverence she beheld her God who is her maker, and how reverently she marvelled that he chose to be born of her, a simple creature of his own making. For what made her marvel was that he who was her Maker chose to be born of the creature he had made... With this sight I really understood that she is greater in worthiness and fullness of grace than all that God made below her; for nothing that is made is above her except the blessed Manhood of Christ. This little thing that is made that is below our Lady Saint Mary, God showed it to me as small as if it had been a hazel-nut. It was so small I thought it might have disappeared.

Last minute slip

Many years ago now I was best man at my brother's wedding. Because of the inter-cultural nature of this event (ie French speaking Belgian), I needed to do a speech in French in a context where the idea of the best man's speech was quite unfamiliar. I was caught by the mother of the bride a few moments before this desperately reading through my little cards - as I explained - trying to make sure that I didn't slip accidentally into Italian at any point.

Apparently, I made it - until the very last sentence, when I slipped into Italian.

Tonight - I couldn't wait - at the first participation in Mass in the new English translation a similar thing happened. I DID remember "The Word of the Lord" at the end of the reading I was asked to do. The very last "and with your spirit", just before the final blessing, was where I lost my concentration and let slip an "also with you".

Must try better next time!

"It is the industrialisation of the word and of the image that has ruined religion"

I dipped this evening into Alina Reyes book of reflections on St Bernadette and the apparitions at Lourdes, La jeune fille et la Vierge. I commented on this book in June 2008 (scroll down the post to reach the section about the book). You might find it useful to read my comment there before continuing. My own translation from the French original; I have also added the emphasis in bold.

The word is at once erotic and transcendent; men and women know this well, when they address to each other words of love to at once enkindle their desire and to purify it. The Church, with its representations of the Virgin, of Christ often almost naked, of the apostles, of the saints who make up a humanity that sometimes is blessed and sometimes suffering, was for the faithful the place of an unconscious eros, but freed from sin, at the same time as being the sacred treasure of poetry.

How have these dimensions dwindled, not to say disappeared during the course of time? Just as the industrialisation of a country ruined the Soubirous family by undermining the work of the artisan, and pushed to one side the economic life of a lovely little village at the foot of the Pyrenees, it is the industrialisation of the word and of the image that has ruined religion. Their galloping proliferation by means of books and photography and even more by means of newspapers, then the cinema, radio, television, the internet, etc. It is calculated that the man of the Middle Ages saw fewer images in the whole of his life than modern man sees in one day. I bet that the proportion is not close to being equal to the instances of gossip suffered.

Le chant de Bernadette, was written by Franz Werfel, faithful to his promise. Bernadette possessed few words, and little mastery of her language. Also, her vision entrusted her with a message of few words, but condensed like a poem, a song.  The rest was expressed by all the other means that speak to the world, a place, a time, personalities, landscapes, a story, and then the bodies and faces, as it happens the body and the face of Bernadette, charged with receiving the imprint of the visions at the instant when they came, so that she could be read like a book of flesh. The first shrine that this field knew was a cave, a refuge for the light hidden below a dark forest, and the living flesh of a young girl wrapped in old clothes.

With the iminent introduction of the new English translation of the Roman Missal, we can perhaps reflect - and hope - that it will make the "poetry" of the Liturgy more transparent.

But we might also reflect on the "industrialisation of the word and of the image" represented by the modern means of communication, and whether or not our participation in that industrialisation makes better known the poetry of religion or, as Alina Reyes suggests, undermines it.

Dorries-Field (continued)

I am not sure what to make of the Dorries-Field amendment in itself, but it is interesting to see what has been going on in the media.

Nadine Dorries own blog is here, and contains a series of posts that give a feel of things. Perhaps particularly notice this post, and the linked piece a the MailOnline.

Caroline's experience is here.

A quite different report here, again with links to media coverage. The reports do not give enough information to make a clear judgement about the research, but the least that one can say is that there is something here that needs to be considered. As the British Journal of Psychology "highlights"  points out this raises rather a critical question since a significant majority of UK abortions are justified on the basis that they reduce the risk to mental health.

I will add more links as I see them.

Apostleship of Prayer: September General Intention

ZENIT reports that the September general intention of the Apostleship of Prayer is for teachers:

The Apostleship of Prayer announced the intentions chosen by the Pope for the upcoming month.

His general intention is for teachers: "That all teachers may know how to communicate the love of truth and instill authentic moral and spiritual values."

ZENIT'S report goes on to quote from a Vatican Radio interview with the Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education:

"If one does not know what good and evil are," he said, "if everything is relative, then the question arises, what should one educate for?"

Then, regarding "spiritual values," the cardinal reminded that "education cannot be reduced to the transmission of knowledge" because then, this knowledge "can be used both for good as well as for evil."

A person must be educated to know, Cardinal Grocholewski acknowledged, but he must also be taught to want to use that knowledge for good....

Teachers, the cardinal stressed, "must not only have an intellectual and specific formation in the subject they teach, but they must also have a certain spiritual formation, that will make them trustworthy persons to represent a certain 'authority' before the students."

It is quite legitimate for a school to be anxious about its examination results, and to consider it important to teach effectively to gain good results for the school's pupils. But how many of our schools do make that additional effort "to communicate the love of truth"?