... has authoritatively spoken: Vatican II taught that God's Covenant with the Jews had not been abrogated.
On the natural assumption that the people the paper employs to write about Economics are as grossly misinformed about that subject as its employees who comment on Theology are about their subject, it is not surprising that we had an international banking collapse, and that we're going to have a lot more of the same.
7 April 2015
6 April 2015
Clerical bigamy in Italy ... the Albenga files.
I am sure that many readers will have read the theological Scifi trilogy of C S 'Patrimony' Lewis; and will remember the entertaining ... and illuminating ... episode in Out of the Silent Planet in which the hero, a Cambridge philologist called Ransom, has met (on Mars) a rational species called the hrossa, rational and unfallen, who naturally know nothing of sophisticated terrestrial pleasures such as Adultery and Polyamory. The hrossa explain the Facts of (unfallen) Life to Ransom. They cannot understand how a Rational Being might wish to "Love Twice"; the nearest analogy they can drum up from their own culture to so improbable a notion, is a poem about a single crazed individual of their own species:
"There is a poem about a hross who lived long ago, in another handramit [valley], who saw things all made two - two suns in the sky, two heads on a neck; and last of all they say that he fell into such a frenzy that he desired two mates. I do not ask you to believe it, but that is the story: that he loved two hressni [females]".
Ransom pondered this. Here ... was a species naturally continent, naturally monogamous ... At last it dawned on him that it was not they, but his own species, that were the puzzle.
This passage came into my mind when I read the exciting news that an Italian diocese had been granted a 'coadjutor' bishop with the full faculties of a diocesan Bishop. The lucky people of Albenga Imperia will have the considerable privilege ... which Catholics, and especially priests, all over the world will jealously envy ... of seeing their Bishop made Two. And this is of considerable ecclesiological interest. Traditionally, the Bishop has been seen as the Bridegroom of his Church, so that even Translation from See to See has seemed close to being a form of Adultery. But now the Ecclesia Albinganensis-Imperiae ... clearly, a lusty and accommodating Lady ... will delight in the simultaneous and bigamous embraces of a doubled Bridegroom.
This Doctrinal Evolution (fully in accordance, I am sure, with Blessed John Henry Newman's Essay on Development) deserves to be rolled out still further. Why only one Pope? Why not (at least) two? We would, just yesterday, have able, like that frenzied hross, to see videoclips of the two Holy Fathers, both doubly beloved, doubly rain-soaked, delivering simultaneously, from opposite ends of the Piazza di San Pietro, their two Easter Addresses and imparting their two Blessings Urbibus et Orbibus with doubled Indulgences. Just imagine the thunder of the redoubled crowds!
"There is a poem about a hross who lived long ago, in another handramit [valley], who saw things all made two - two suns in the sky, two heads on a neck; and last of all they say that he fell into such a frenzy that he desired two mates. I do not ask you to believe it, but that is the story: that he loved two hressni [females]".
Ransom pondered this. Here ... was a species naturally continent, naturally monogamous ... At last it dawned on him that it was not they, but his own species, that were the puzzle.
This passage came into my mind when I read the exciting news that an Italian diocese had been granted a 'coadjutor' bishop with the full faculties of a diocesan Bishop. The lucky people of Albenga Imperia will have the considerable privilege ... which Catholics, and especially priests, all over the world will jealously envy ... of seeing their Bishop made Two. And this is of considerable ecclesiological interest. Traditionally, the Bishop has been seen as the Bridegroom of his Church, so that even Translation from See to See has seemed close to being a form of Adultery. But now the Ecclesia Albinganensis-Imperiae ... clearly, a lusty and accommodating Lady ... will delight in the simultaneous and bigamous embraces of a doubled Bridegroom.
This Doctrinal Evolution (fully in accordance, I am sure, with Blessed John Henry Newman's Essay on Development) deserves to be rolled out still further. Why only one Pope? Why not (at least) two? We would, just yesterday, have able, like that frenzied hross, to see videoclips of the two Holy Fathers, both doubly beloved, doubly rain-soaked, delivering simultaneously, from opposite ends of the Piazza di San Pietro, their two Easter Addresses and imparting their two Blessings Urbibus et Orbibus with doubled Indulgences. Just imagine the thunder of the redoubled crowds!
5 April 2015
The RISUS PASCHALIS
Readers will be aware of Joseph Ratzinger's explanation of the RISUS PASCHALIS ... in baroque Bavaria, on Easter Morning , the parochus was expected to situate a funny in his homily in the hope of appealing to the sense of humour of the plebs sancta Dei. My Risus Paschalis will come tomorrow morning.
But I feel moved to repeat this evening a Risus, a Iocus Paschalis, passed on to me years ago by an acquaintance of mine of whose death I have only just heard. Professor 'Sammy' Sheppard Frere, Seconds House Lancing 1930-1935, CBE, FSA, FBA, Housemaster of Gibbs, Fellow of All Souls, died on 26 February this year, aged 98, about three weeks after I had given you the following anecdote on my Blog. Cuius animae propitietur Deus.
February 4 2015: Some quite nice sunny weather, recently, fit for strolling across the water meadows of the flood plain and along the Thames. The daffodills have been out for a fortnight now near Sandford Lock. Lots of new molehills; can it be that the little chaps have to scramble above the water table? In the spoil heap of one such tiny excavation, a small piece of coarse red pottery ... what we used to call a sherd ... which, I suppose, must have been deposited, perhaps centuries ago, in a flood.
That little sherd reminded me of a story I heard from 'Sammy' ('Brittania') Frere, sometime member of the Classics Department at Lancing; sometime Fellow of All Souls College Oxford (back in those primitive days before the rise of the modern narrowly focussed "academic" ... before 'Specialisation', when there was so much more hithering and thithering between Common Rooms at Oxbridge and that at Lancing, and indeed between subject and subject). Professor Frere's anecdote concerned Sir Flinders Petrie (another great archaeologist) and Petrie's wife Hilda (ditto). The pair spent their lives excavating in Egypt and Gaza (back in those dangerous days before European Civilisation brought peace, stability and the Arab Spring to the Middle East).
During one such excavation, probably in the 1930s, a youthful member of the team approached Hilda in a state of some very visible embarrassment. "Lady Petrie", he mumbled, red-faced (and a trifle chiastically), "I'm afraid, er, well, we've nearly run out of ... well ... er ... lavatory paper". Her reply:
"Young man, for forty years Sir Flinders and I have used nothing but sherds".
Sustainable?
But I feel moved to repeat this evening a Risus, a Iocus Paschalis, passed on to me years ago by an acquaintance of mine of whose death I have only just heard. Professor 'Sammy' Sheppard Frere, Seconds House Lancing 1930-1935, CBE, FSA, FBA, Housemaster of Gibbs, Fellow of All Souls, died on 26 February this year, aged 98, about three weeks after I had given you the following anecdote on my Blog. Cuius animae propitietur Deus.
February 4 2015: Some quite nice sunny weather, recently, fit for strolling across the water meadows of the flood plain and along the Thames. The daffodills have been out for a fortnight now near Sandford Lock. Lots of new molehills; can it be that the little chaps have to scramble above the water table? In the spoil heap of one such tiny excavation, a small piece of coarse red pottery ... what we used to call a sherd ... which, I suppose, must have been deposited, perhaps centuries ago, in a flood.
That little sherd reminded me of a story I heard from 'Sammy' ('Brittania') Frere, sometime member of the Classics Department at Lancing; sometime Fellow of All Souls College Oxford (back in those primitive days before the rise of the modern narrowly focussed "academic" ... before 'Specialisation', when there was so much more hithering and thithering between Common Rooms at Oxbridge and that at Lancing, and indeed between subject and subject). Professor Frere's anecdote concerned Sir Flinders Petrie (another great archaeologist) and Petrie's wife Hilda (ditto). The pair spent their lives excavating in Egypt and Gaza (back in those dangerous days before European Civilisation brought peace, stability and the Arab Spring to the Middle East).
During one such excavation, probably in the 1930s, a youthful member of the team approached Hilda in a state of some very visible embarrassment. "Lady Petrie", he mumbled, red-faced (and a trifle chiastically), "I'm afraid, er, well, we've nearly run out of ... well ... er ... lavatory paper". Her reply:
"Young man, for forty years Sir Flinders and I have used nothing but sherds".
Sustainable?
4 April 2015
Urbi et Orbi ...
... I send my best wishes; to readers whoever and wherever they are. Especially, if they read this, dear long-time friends at Papa Stronsay, and Sons of S Philip Neri, and citizens of the mighty Lone Star State. And the elegant and beautiful city of Copenhagen. And to more recent friends at Silverstream and in Dublin; as well as to those I have met through the Roman Forum, and that great engine of the New Evangelisation, the Latin Mass Society together with its Latin Summer School, and at Knock. Brothers and sisters in the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, and fellow-members of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy: that almost goes without saying. All who have contributed comments to this blog ... yes, I mean you. Benefactors who have given me books, articles, and hospitality. Come to think of it, quite a lot of overlapping in this list! And - a very special category - my love to those who kept me going in the dark months after, having entered into Full Communion, I immediately ran into a cruel wall of hostility and rejection. I shall particularly pray this Pasch for the Franciscans of the Immaculate, whose problems have already lasted more than twice as long as mine did; and for courageous bishops who, at personal risk, have given some of the FI a refuge.
But I would also like to greet, if I dare, readers who are still within the Church of England, and who can read this Blog without being too angry with me.
Ecumenism means nothing if we entertain vacuously kindly thoughts about ecclesial bodies theologically far distant from us, while feeling irritated towards those who are so close that you couldn't get an old-style cigarette paper between us. And this means: those who held with us the fulness of the Catholic Faith, yet remain for the time being the other side of the Tiber. I sometimes feel that some who regarded themselves as 'papalists' when we were all together, seem to have been driven to a more distant ecclesiology by beholding us in Full Communion with Peter. I pray that my own words have not been, and may not be, a skandalon.
God bless you; may God bless us all.
But I would also like to greet, if I dare, readers who are still within the Church of England, and who can read this Blog without being too angry with me.
Ecumenism means nothing if we entertain vacuously kindly thoughts about ecclesial bodies theologically far distant from us, while feeling irritated towards those who are so close that you couldn't get an old-style cigarette paper between us. And this means: those who held with us the fulness of the Catholic Faith, yet remain for the time being the other side of the Tiber. I sometimes feel that some who regarded themselves as 'papalists' when we were all together, seem to have been driven to a more distant ecclesiology by beholding us in Full Communion with Peter. I pray that my own words have not been, and may not be, a skandalon.
God bless you; may God bless us all.
Haec nox est ...
Even churches where the kiddies have been persuaded to create an Easter Garden do not attempt a physical portrayal of the words in the Exsultet destructis vinculis mortis, Christus ab inferis victor ascendit. The most stupendous event in the history of the cosmos - the most terrible wonder in the elapse of time betwen the initial and final big bangs - is never actually attempted by artists or even described in words. The Lord's Resurrection is, as it were, wrapped in veils. Jesus' burial may be described; lightning and earthquakes may be mentioned; women and men meet the mysterious stranger in the garden or on the road to Emmaus; but no television camera, no recording historical pen, no purported eyewitness, intrudes into the darkness and mystery of that cave-tomb. No Gospel writer claims to discern a tremor beneath the winding-cloth, no chronicler pretends to be able to describe the aweful countenance of the One who was dead and en atomoi, in a moment, is alive. It is as if to do so would mar the unimaginable wonder and terror of such a ... did I call it an 'event'? I think that was a category error: what we are talking about is not in any cataphatic word-bag. No, for the Gospel writers it is as if even to try to imagine it is an unspeakable vulgarity. And the Church's liturgy is marked by the same awed reticence: in the Song of the Candle the deacon exclaims with fearful wonder: 'O Night truly blessed, who alone wast worthy to know the time and the hour'.
The greater the miracle and the greater the wonder, then the more need for a veil to shield our eyes. S Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest Christian thinker since S Paul, described what Christ did at the Last Supper as 'the mightiest miracle that he ever worked during his life on earth'. That same miracle is repeated every time that Mass is offered; at every Eucharist the stone is rolled from the darkness of the tomb; when the words of consecration 'This is my Body' are uttered, the Easter Lord who was dead and is alive walks out of eternity and comes among us; and the veil which prevents us from being consumed by such a wonder is the forms of bread and wine. The naked brightness of the divine reality would be too much for such as now we are. But as we kneel at the altar, every Mass is Easter and the Lord is the risen and invincible One and He whispers to each of us, as He whispered to Mary in the garden, the name He has given us; and for a moment the veil becomes wafer thin.
The greater the miracle and the greater the wonder, then the more need for a veil to shield our eyes. S Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the greatest Christian thinker since S Paul, described what Christ did at the Last Supper as 'the mightiest miracle that he ever worked during his life on earth'. That same miracle is repeated every time that Mass is offered; at every Eucharist the stone is rolled from the darkness of the tomb; when the words of consecration 'This is my Body' are uttered, the Easter Lord who was dead and is alive walks out of eternity and comes among us; and the veil which prevents us from being consumed by such a wonder is the forms of bread and wine. The naked brightness of the divine reality would be too much for such as now we are. But as we kneel at the altar, every Mass is Easter and the Lord is the risen and invincible One and He whispers to each of us, as He whispered to Mary in the garden, the name He has given us; and for a moment the veil becomes wafer thin.
Location, location ...
Thank you, SH, aye, in the Kingdom of the North, for a most charming Easter Card, via the Royal Mail Aberdeen Mail Centre! It has just arrived this morning, brilliantly on cue on a grey dismal Holy Saturday morning in the English Midlands, and cheered me up very greatly with its Paschal Candle. Two or three generations ago, we would all by now have been cheered up by the Liturgy itself at its old Saturday morning timing, with the paradoxes Evelyn Waugh observed: seeking illumination in the middle of the day by lighting a fire, and then blessing the fire by sprinkling it with water! I think our beloved Benedict XVI once wrote about those old, easily derided, Holy Week arrangements, deriving Illumination from them and, by doing so, wisely reminding us of his authoritative teaching in Summorum Pontificum, that the Church can never just abolish an orthodox Catholic rite.
Your card had been forwarded from our former address; it occurs to me that it might be useful to give you my current address. Perhaps other readers, too, who have me in their nice old fashioned pre-email Address Books, could update me in them.
I still have such a child-like joy in being sent things!! There is only one detail that disappoints me: the old-style, round, postmarks, cancelling the stamps (and how long will they survive?) by giving place and time of franking, seem to have been Rationalised away in Britain. But lots of Commonwealth countries still preserve them. Thank God for our loyal Colonies.
26, Playfield Road,
Kennington,
OXFORD,
OX1 5RS
Your card had been forwarded from our former address; it occurs to me that it might be useful to give you my current address. Perhaps other readers, too, who have me in their nice old fashioned pre-email Address Books, could update me in them.
I still have such a child-like joy in being sent things!! There is only one detail that disappoints me: the old-style, round, postmarks, cancelling the stamps (and how long will they survive?) by giving place and time of franking, seem to have been Rationalised away in Britain. But lots of Commonwealth countries still preserve them. Thank God for our loyal Colonies.
26, Playfield Road,
Kennington,
OXFORD,
OX1 5RS
Paschal Candles in grouped parishes
I would have put this on Fr Zed's blog if I knew how ... six parishes are grouped together and combining for one Vigil Mass in one of the six churches. How do the other five Paschal Candles get 'done'? A C of E document intelligently suggests that, while only one Candle may be blessed at the Vigil, representives of the other churches might, at the end of the Liturgy, bring up their candles to be lit from the flame of 'The' Paschal Candle, and then carry them in procession out of the church. Creates a link between ... etc. etc.. Not illegal, because it happens after the dismissal; 'extraliturgically'.
3 April 2015
LEO THE GREAT
O admirabilis potentia Crucis! O ineffabilis gloria passionis, in qua et tribunal Domini et iudicium mundi et potestas est Crucifixi. (Leo, PL 54, 340; O wonderful powerfulness of the Cross! O unspeakable Glory of the Passion! in which is the Tribunal of the Lord and the Judgement of the World and the powerful authority of the Crucified). Superb latinity: notice the contrast between potentia [what it can achieve] and potestas [the authority of a public official], the first pointing to and enacting the second. S Leo the Roman, the consummation of the old pagan Romanitas and principal begetter of the new, portrays the Crucified as a Roman Magistrate seated in full authority upon his curule chair passing Judgement on the mundus, the world which is now beginning to pass away; tetelestai!! .... ego nenikeka ton kosmon!!! But this Magistrate is not togatus; it is the essence of His Imperium that He is naked and scarred, and His curule chair is soaked in the scarlet of His Blood. Is this the ultimate apotheosis of oxymoron, the purpose for which oxymoron was, before time began, created in the mind of the Father and is now Spoken?
And what majestic theology. However can people repeat the old nonsense that we Latins see only pathos in the Crucifixion, and only Glory in the Resurrection! Gloria Passionis!
But we do rather indulge ourselves in the idea that our crucified Lord is ever merciful. He is, and the Divine Mercy does flow endlessly from His opened Sacred Heart, but that is only one side of a single coin. The Cross is also the tribunal, the Judgement seat, where the mundus receives iudicium, condemnation. We kneel before it on Good Friday in loving gratitude for the Blood of Salvation, but equally, surely, in Fear. The very tortured Reality whose feet we kneel today to kiss emphasises the reality and horror of the Sin in my own heart; He is the Lord whose painful light shows up the dark corners of my life and admits no other evidence in His Court of Appeal than His own Blood. He is the One who strips away all our chattering man-made self-justification so as to leave us naked but saved.
And what majestic theology. However can people repeat the old nonsense that we Latins see only pathos in the Crucifixion, and only Glory in the Resurrection! Gloria Passionis!
But we do rather indulge ourselves in the idea that our crucified Lord is ever merciful. He is, and the Divine Mercy does flow endlessly from His opened Sacred Heart, but that is only one side of a single coin. The Cross is also the tribunal, the Judgement seat, where the mundus receives iudicium, condemnation. We kneel before it on Good Friday in loving gratitude for the Blood of Salvation, but equally, surely, in Fear. The very tortured Reality whose feet we kneel today to kiss emphasises the reality and horror of the Sin in my own heart; He is the Lord whose painful light shows up the dark corners of my life and admits no other evidence in His Court of Appeal than His own Blood. He is the One who strips away all our chattering man-made self-justification so as to leave us naked but saved.
2 April 2015
The Cup of Salvation
Having received the Most Sacred Body, and meditated for a few moments, the Priest genuflects and rises, saying:
What reward shall I give unto YHWH for all the benefits that he hath done unto me? I will receive the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of YHWH. At a very early point in Christian history, these words were appropriated to the Cup of the Lord's Blood; in the 'Anamnesis' of the Roman Canon the priest offers Calicem salutis perpetuae ("the Chalice of Everlasting Salvation" ... I am by no means convinced of the correctness of the assumption that the form given by S Ambrose - Calicem vitae aeternae - is earlier). Perhaps the author of the psalm had in mind the (fourth) Cup "of Blessing" in the Passover Meal; a rabbinic commentary on the psalm says: "I will elevate the chalice of salvation; that is, when I keep festival and rejoicings, I will lift up a cup of wine, I will give thanks to Him over it in the presence of many, and will make mention of the salvation wherewith He has saved me." And the probability is that this psalm (116:10ff/115) was part of the Hallel said by the Lord and His disciples on Maundy Thursday Night; in the Old Breviary it is part of Vespers on Maundy Thursdsay and Good Friday.
I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the Name of YHWH; I will pay my vows unto YHWH in the sight of all His people; in the courts of the House of YHWH, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.
Protestants seem always cheerfully to have assumed that this means "Sacrifice consisting of no more than praise and thanksgiving". The phrase in the Hebrew Bible, of course, means a sacrifice, consisting, like all sacrifice, of material offerings (animal or vegetable), which are offered for a thanksgiving. Canon Arthur Couratin used drily to remark that, in the Old Testament, Sacrifices of Thanksgiving walked around on four legs. And on this Maundy Thursday it is important to remember the links in ancient sacrificial procedure ... Greek, Roman, Hebrew ... between the offering and the Sacrificial Banquet which follows the immolation and consists of eating portions of the sacrificed animal; the feast was a part of the offering. That is why it comes so easily to S Paul (I Corinthians 10:18-21) to see the Lord's Supper as sacrificial; the word he uses for supper (I Corinthians 11:29, deipnon) was used pretty well as a technical term in the invitations pagans used to send to take part in the Sacrifice and the Meal which was a integral part of the Sacrifice (many papyrus letters containing such invitations have come to light in the sands of Egypt). Some modern Christians, outside our tradition, even use the word Supper under the assumption that it points to something simple or informal or unceremonious or 'uncultic'; the contemporaries of our Lord and of S Paul would not have understood this assumption.
One also thinks here of the Levitical thank-offering of fine flour; which means that this psalm, having mentioned the Chalice, has now alluded to the two Eucharistic Elements.
This same psalm was running through the mind of whoever composed the prayer Memento, probably originally said by the Deacon and referring to the elements which the offerentes had brought up to the Altar: "who offer unto thee this sacrifice of Praise ... who render their vows ...".
These phrases have been sanctified by Eucharistic application from the Night before the Lord's Death until now. We should never forget how soaked the earliest Christians were in the Greek Old Testament*; we should never forget that we Gentile Christians are, in God's Election, Jews, grafted into God's Olive Tree so as to replace that portion of God's people which had rejected their Messiah (Romans 11:17-24).
*(After Easter, I plan to revisit some highly important teaching of Benedict XVI about the importance of the Greek Old Testament.)
What reward shall I give unto YHWH for all the benefits that he hath done unto me? I will receive the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of YHWH. At a very early point in Christian history, these words were appropriated to the Cup of the Lord's Blood; in the 'Anamnesis' of the Roman Canon the priest offers Calicem salutis perpetuae ("the Chalice of Everlasting Salvation" ... I am by no means convinced of the correctness of the assumption that the form given by S Ambrose - Calicem vitae aeternae - is earlier). Perhaps the author of the psalm had in mind the (fourth) Cup "of Blessing" in the Passover Meal; a rabbinic commentary on the psalm says: "I will elevate the chalice of salvation; that is, when I keep festival and rejoicings, I will lift up a cup of wine, I will give thanks to Him over it in the presence of many, and will make mention of the salvation wherewith He has saved me." And the probability is that this psalm (116:10ff/115) was part of the Hallel said by the Lord and His disciples on Maundy Thursday Night; in the Old Breviary it is part of Vespers on Maundy Thursdsay and Good Friday.
I will offer unto thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the Name of YHWH; I will pay my vows unto YHWH in the sight of all His people; in the courts of the House of YHWH, even in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem.
Protestants seem always cheerfully to have assumed that this means "Sacrifice consisting of no more than praise and thanksgiving". The phrase in the Hebrew Bible, of course, means a sacrifice, consisting, like all sacrifice, of material offerings (animal or vegetable), which are offered for a thanksgiving. Canon Arthur Couratin used drily to remark that, in the Old Testament, Sacrifices of Thanksgiving walked around on four legs. And on this Maundy Thursday it is important to remember the links in ancient sacrificial procedure ... Greek, Roman, Hebrew ... between the offering and the Sacrificial Banquet which follows the immolation and consists of eating portions of the sacrificed animal; the feast was a part of the offering. That is why it comes so easily to S Paul (I Corinthians 10:18-21) to see the Lord's Supper as sacrificial; the word he uses for supper (I Corinthians 11:29, deipnon) was used pretty well as a technical term in the invitations pagans used to send to take part in the Sacrifice and the Meal which was a integral part of the Sacrifice (many papyrus letters containing such invitations have come to light in the sands of Egypt). Some modern Christians, outside our tradition, even use the word Supper under the assumption that it points to something simple or informal or unceremonious or 'uncultic'; the contemporaries of our Lord and of S Paul would not have understood this assumption.
One also thinks here of the Levitical thank-offering of fine flour; which means that this psalm, having mentioned the Chalice, has now alluded to the two Eucharistic Elements.
This same psalm was running through the mind of whoever composed the prayer Memento, probably originally said by the Deacon and referring to the elements which the offerentes had brought up to the Altar: "who offer unto thee this sacrifice of Praise ... who render their vows ...".
These phrases have been sanctified by Eucharistic application from the Night before the Lord's Death until now. We should never forget how soaked the earliest Christians were in the Greek Old Testament*; we should never forget that we Gentile Christians are, in God's Election, Jews, grafted into God's Olive Tree so as to replace that portion of God's people which had rejected their Messiah (Romans 11:17-24).
*(After Easter, I plan to revisit some highly important teaching of Benedict XVI about the importance of the Greek Old Testament.)
1 April 2015
Spring or Summer on the Italian Lakes? Join me there!!.
I remember the beginning of the sermon well; firstly, because it was the day after we got married on April 1, secondly because the preacher was very fat. Low Sunday 1967; High Mass in S Mary's Bourne Street; and the homilist began by remarking that, a generation ago, one could have found the entire Anglican Bench of Bishops on the shores of the Italian Lakes on Low Sunday. I suppose we should all rejoice, we of the Ordinariate, that the English Catholic bishops are planning their ten-day break, so richly deserved, lakeside at Palazzola from April 17: a very Patrimonial thing to do!!
Patrimonial, the Italian Lakes, but Trollopian as well! All I knew about them until last year was that Dr Vesey Stanhope spent the emoluments of his Barchester canonry living there and adding to the collection of butterflies for which he was so famous, until the menaces of a new Bishop ... or his Chaplain ... or rather, the Bishop's wife ... induced him to return to the Close. But last year I did get, finally, to Lake Garda; and the wonders of the place swept me off my feet. The "Roman Forum", run by Dr John Rao, is what took me there. Beneath is what I wrote on my blog shortly after I returned:
Patrimonial, the Italian Lakes, but Trollopian as well! All I knew about them until last year was that Dr Vesey Stanhope spent the emoluments of his Barchester canonry living there and adding to the collection of butterflies for which he was so famous, until the menaces of a new Bishop ... or his Chaplain ... or rather, the Bishop's wife ... induced him to return to the Close. But last year I did get, finally, to Lake Garda; and the wonders of the place swept me off my feet. The "Roman Forum", run by Dr John Rao, is what took me there. Beneath is what I wrote on my blog shortly after I returned:
FROM 12 JULY 2014 ...
What a spectacular ten days! I have just returned from the Roman Forum colloquium organised annually by the brilliant and indefatigable John Rao. Centred at a beautiful village on the hillside above the exquisitely beautiful Lake Garda which Caius Valerius Catullus so loved (I did, of course, take my Catullus with me) the colloquium includes two daily lectures; a Sung Mass at 11.30 (said Masses earlier); drinks at Seven ... Dinner at Eight ... you get the idea. It also included a trip around the lake ... as far as Malcesine where thousands of swallows endlessly circled a Venetian tower ... and a superbly organised expedition to Venice: Dr Rao has his own boatmen and the entire day was magically effortless. Some participants later made up a party to go to the opera in the Roman amphitheatre at Verona.
This is not a liturgical conference (although the liturgy used is of course the authentic rite of the Latin Church, done with a very competent Schola in the beautiful baroque Parish Church). A commitment to Tradition is broader than just being fond of the Vetus Ordo. I'm not going to tell you what the common intellectual theme was this year ... you should jolly well make sure you go in 2015. Suffice it to say that the quality of the lectures was (except for my couple) very distinguished indeed. The participants were of every age and included those with ideas to communicate and non-intellectuals who just wished to learn more about the Faith. (English is the language of the colloquium, but lecturers are from all over Europe and America).
I was very glad to meet and talk with, for the first time, the eminent historian of Vatican II, Professor Roberto de Mattei, whose papers will have fascinated you on the Rorate blog. The lecturers were all (except for me) distinguished. The staff of Gloria TV dropped in and filmed us ... It was fascinating to get the low-down on the Austrian Church ...
You just don't know what you missed. But there is 2015 ...
Thayt's what I wrote last year, 2014, and believe me, I can't wait to get back. There are some rooms still vacant in the village and I'll do another Post later in the day.
What a spectacular ten days! I have just returned from the Roman Forum colloquium organised annually by the brilliant and indefatigable John Rao. Centred at a beautiful village on the hillside above the exquisitely beautiful Lake Garda which Caius Valerius Catullus so loved (I did, of course, take my Catullus with me) the colloquium includes two daily lectures; a Sung Mass at 11.30 (said Masses earlier); drinks at Seven ... Dinner at Eight ... you get the idea. It also included a trip around the lake ... as far as Malcesine where thousands of swallows endlessly circled a Venetian tower ... and a superbly organised expedition to Venice: Dr Rao has his own boatmen and the entire day was magically effortless. Some participants later made up a party to go to the opera in the Roman amphitheatre at Verona.
This is not a liturgical conference (although the liturgy used is of course the authentic rite of the Latin Church, done with a very competent Schola in the beautiful baroque Parish Church). A commitment to Tradition is broader than just being fond of the Vetus Ordo. I'm not going to tell you what the common intellectual theme was this year ... you should jolly well make sure you go in 2015. Suffice it to say that the quality of the lectures was (except for my couple) very distinguished indeed. The participants were of every age and included those with ideas to communicate and non-intellectuals who just wished to learn more about the Faith. (English is the language of the colloquium, but lecturers are from all over Europe and America).
I was very glad to meet and talk with, for the first time, the eminent historian of Vatican II, Professor Roberto de Mattei, whose papers will have fascinated you on the Rorate blog. The lecturers were all (except for me) distinguished. The staff of Gloria TV dropped in and filmed us ... It was fascinating to get the low-down on the Austrian Church ...
You just don't know what you missed. But there is 2015 ...
Thayt's what I wrote last year, 2014, and believe me, I can't wait to get back. There are some rooms still vacant in the village and I'll do another Post later in the day.
Gardone: more ...
THE ROMAN FORUM SUMMER SYMPOSIUM GARDONE 2015 will get you the details via Google. The dates are June 29 until July 10, and the theme this year is Forbidden Topics: a free and rational Catholic challenge to the frightened Modern Mind. An admirable general subject; it took me some time to narrow myself down to the two choices I am allowed to lecture on. I do beg you to give serious consideration to a ten day treat in which one is unsure whether it is first-rate intellectual stimulation varied by food, wine, good liturgy, good conversation, top-notch sight-seeing ... or the food and the etceteras varied by first-rate intellectual stimulation. I append below what I wrote after returning from last year's Forum; WARNING: its original heading apologised for the excessive Classical references. Don't be put off: the Conference is not a Classical Conference!
FROM 7 AUGUST 2014 ... mainly for Classicists ...
.... the drill was that we made our own arrangements for lunch ... usually eating in little groups at the various eateries around the square. On just one occasion I acted antisocially. On my own, concealing shamefacedly a small volume of poetry, some of it sexually explicit, I crept down to the waterfront, lined with lavish villas and hotels built by or for the Austrians and Germans for whom this was a convenient riviera. Under the ample and cool portico of the former Casino, looking out over what must be some of the most wonderful views in the world, I ordered a vitello tonnato and settled down, undisturbed, to reread Caii Valerii Catulli Carmina.
Well, wouldn't you have done so? Perhaps you have done so. How could one visit Catullus's lake, looking across to his Sirmio over the anerithmon gelasma ton kumaton (did he have this line from the Prometheus Vinctus in mind as he wrote O Lydiae lacus undae, ridete quidquid est domi cachinorum?) and not read his Carmina? And not think of his Phaselus cutting through the water? (The commentators, incidentally, discuss whether the river was still navigable when he brought her home for her retirement; but since more than a millennium later the Venetians hauled their galleys over the mountains to have a naval battle with the French, the question seems otiose.)
I wondered whether it was the limpid waters of Garda that got Catullus thinking, while he was still an adulescens, about luxus et veneres: what Jasper Griffin, the Corpus Professor emeritus in this University, once wrote about as the joys of women, water, and nakedness ... the nymphs nutricum tenus exstantes e gurgite cano ... Ariadne on the beach, mindless of her mitra, her amictus and her strophium all slipping off her body to be played with by the cheeky little waves around her ankles as in Catullus 64, his Epyllion in the purest manner of Callimachus ... until I was woken from reminiscences of Neoteric poetry and Oxford Professors by the waiter, who clearly had begun to think quamquam invito Catullo of taking his siesta. He told me that the premises had been used during the War as a German Officers' Club. For the first time in my life (this will confirm you in your view of how amoral and unimaginative I am) I began to wonder whether I might have had a vocation to join the Wehrmacht.
So I strolled through the gardens of the adjoining villa, where Il Duce, another man not indifferent to pleasures of the flesh, set up Clara Pettacci ... in all the circumstances, let us hope that she enjoyed her all-too-brief stay there ... and then I climbed the hill to listen to another particularly spectacular paper by John Rao.
FROM 7 AUGUST 2014 ... mainly for Classicists ...
.... the drill was that we made our own arrangements for lunch ... usually eating in little groups at the various eateries around the square. On just one occasion I acted antisocially. On my own, concealing shamefacedly a small volume of poetry, some of it sexually explicit, I crept down to the waterfront, lined with lavish villas and hotels built by or for the Austrians and Germans for whom this was a convenient riviera. Under the ample and cool portico of the former Casino, looking out over what must be some of the most wonderful views in the world, I ordered a vitello tonnato and settled down, undisturbed, to reread Caii Valerii Catulli Carmina.
Well, wouldn't you have done so? Perhaps you have done so. How could one visit Catullus's lake, looking across to his Sirmio over the anerithmon gelasma ton kumaton (did he have this line from the Prometheus Vinctus in mind as he wrote O Lydiae lacus undae, ridete quidquid est domi cachinorum?) and not read his Carmina? And not think of his Phaselus cutting through the water? (The commentators, incidentally, discuss whether the river was still navigable when he brought her home for her retirement; but since more than a millennium later the Venetians hauled their galleys over the mountains to have a naval battle with the French, the question seems otiose.)
I wondered whether it was the limpid waters of Garda that got Catullus thinking, while he was still an adulescens, about luxus et veneres: what Jasper Griffin, the Corpus Professor emeritus in this University, once wrote about as the joys of women, water, and nakedness ... the nymphs nutricum tenus exstantes e gurgite cano ... Ariadne on the beach, mindless of her mitra, her amictus and her strophium all slipping off her body to be played with by the cheeky little waves around her ankles as in Catullus 64, his Epyllion in the purest manner of Callimachus ... until I was woken from reminiscences of Neoteric poetry and Oxford Professors by the waiter, who clearly had begun to think quamquam invito Catullo of taking his siesta. He told me that the premises had been used during the War as a German Officers' Club. For the first time in my life (this will confirm you in your view of how amoral and unimaginative I am) I began to wonder whether I might have had a vocation to join the Wehrmacht.
So I strolled through the gardens of the adjoining villa, where Il Duce, another man not indifferent to pleasures of the flesh, set up Clara Pettacci ... in all the circumstances, let us hope that she enjoyed her all-too-brief stay there ... and then I climbed the hill to listen to another particularly spectacular paper by John Rao.
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