(1) April Fools' Day and the Gregorian Pascha don't often coincide so as to demand of us the duty of a duplex risus. Last time: 1956. The next time is rather sooner: 2029.
About the Risus Paschalis, see Ratzinger, Images of Hope.
Qui crucifixus erat Deus, ecce per omnia regnat! Salve festa Dies!! (S Venantius Fortunatus, echoing Publius Ovidius Naso.)
(2) Why did I like Vincent Nichols' Times piece on Holy Saturday? Because we are in an age when people pussyfoot around with "Some Christians believe" and "According to legend" and so on, thus allowing the 'Enlightenment' to put a great gulf between us and a simple assertion of the Tradition. But, happily, Nichols just told it straight and, I thought, put things rather well.
As for his piece on the BBC on Friday, about Scalfarigate, I felt distinctly sorry for him. All over Christendom, priests and bishops and not least cardinals have long been preparing for their great duty of sanctifying God's people through the Triduum ... and then you get dragged into Broadcasting House on Good Friday morning to be interrogated by that condescending bore John Humphrys because PF, in his enormous but enormously inscrutable wisdom, has yet again given some crook called scalfari the opportunity to attribute to PF some words which immediately throw the Media into a ferment and are considered to require official denial.
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3 comments:
Father, your pre-modifier is apt, but your orthography incorrect: he's 'Humphrys'.
Dear Sue
A happy Easter!
Thank you. I have corrected the orthography of H's name.
I have also changed 'oaf' to 'bore'. Perhaps it is a little more focussed a term.
My wife refuses ever to listen to the man.
I would respectfully suggest, Father, that you find a more charitable term than "crook" for Scalfari. He is a reputable journalist.
I regret to say that in my opinion the blame for this sorry episode lies entirely with the Holy Father. In a world where a politician's hasty response to an act of censorship six years ago can return to provide ammunition for his enemies today, Pope Francis was unwise to give (another) unrecorded interview to Scalfari. I am told by an Anglican priest, whose word I trust, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, in addition to any microphone used for amplification, is always "wired up" so that his words are recorded and any misquotation can be corrected. An ecumenical lesson for the Holy Father from his separated brother?
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