What's in a Name? (1)

If you stand by the traffic lights at the corner of Parks Road and South Parks Road and look East, you will see, on your left, the Radcliffe Science Library. It is built in the style that rampaged throgh Oxford in the 1930s: squared rubble in small blocks with ashlar dressings. It is sometimes called Cotswold-Manorial, because of its claimed similarities with the vernaculat architectural styles of the Cotswolds, a mountain range a few miles West of the Railway Station.

But now it has stopped being the Radcliffe Science Library. With a touch of Circe's wand, it has become the centre of Reuben College ... a new 'Graduate College' designed to collect money off wealthy New Englanders whose daughters want to spend a few years in Oxford. I know no more about the Reuben Brothers than you can discover yourself from Wikipaedia. 

The proposed new 'college' had the 'holding name' Parks College. It is presumed that the Reuben Brothers have made a financial contribution.

Immediately opposite is the Rhodes Building, built in exactly the same Thirties architectural style ... except that, like so very many Cotswold Manor Houses and barns, it has a classicising portico and dome.

Cecil Rhodes, now fashionably an object of scornful detestation, gave a lot of money to endow his Rhodes Scholars, young men from America, Germany, and several parts of the Empire. In our undergraduate days, you could always recognise them from their uniform of three-piece tweed suit, neatly rolled umbrella, and copy of The Times newspaper.

I wonder how much longer the Rhodes building can cling on to the name of Rhodes. Quite possibly, even as I write, it has already lost it.

I wonder how long Reuben College will bear that name, before the dim and woke youth bully their wet and timorous elders into suppressing all memory of the 'Founders'.  

To be finished tomorrow.

Yet another great Feast!

 ... that is, of the Martyres Oxonienses. I began by wondering if Oxford is a unique educational establishment in having specific liturgical recognition of those of its members who subsequently achieved the  corona Martyrii ... almost as one achieves the possiblity ... vocation? ... of entering into a particular commemoration simply by being referri in matriculam huius Universitatis.

But then I remembered the commemoration of the Martyres Duacenses. 

And so I fell to musing on how nearly coterminous these two august categories are! 

Pietas inclines me to think, in particular, of S Alexander Briant, of the Aula Cervina in this University ... and of Douay College! He made the journey to Tyburn this very day in 1581, in company with two other Douay lads, Ss Edmund Campion (Scholar and Fellow of S John's College; and Orator) and Ralph Sherwin (Fellow of Exeter College).

Decus Angliae, Decus almae Universitatis, orate pro nobis!

HAPPY S ANDREW'S DAY

A mighty feast of a mighty intercessor et rector: today, in 1554, that great Englishman of the Blood Royal, Reginald Cardinal Pole, Archbishop of Canterrbury and Legate of the Holy See, absolved the Lords and Commons of this Kingdom from Heresy and Schism.

More later.

LITURGICAL CHANGE (2)

So whence cometh the addition of the word one into the formula? It is present in the old, bad, ICEL rendering. But it has an earlier history than that, as Sons and Daughters of the Anglican Patrimony will be clamouring to explain. And that is why one is present in the Ordinariate Divine Worship Missal (which, incidentally, will not be affected by George's decree).

I think English worshippers will first have met it on Whit-Sunday morning n 1549. They heard, at the end of the perpetual memorial pro Rege near the start of The Supper of the Lorde and the Holy Communion, commonly called the Masse. "... Through Jesus Christe oure Lorde, who with thee, and the holy ghoste, liveth and reigneth, ever one God, worlde without ende. Amen."

In fact, the literate but combustible Cranmer did 'the 1549 book' in a great hurry, and there are a lot of different versions of this formula. Most often, however, he simply wrote "liveth and reigneth etc.." leaving the rest to the celebrant (these "etc" collects stayed thus until 1662). In fact, a few seconds earlier, in the Pentecost collect, the bemused congregations will have heard " ...who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unitie of the same spirite, one God, worlde without ende."

That Whit-Sunday experience of  Cranmer's incomparable prose led, of course, directly into the Western Rebellion and the consequent Tudor genocide. But that is not today's story.

Why did he add one or Ever one God? Perhaps we should remember the Athanasian Creed, thus translated by Cranmer: "So the father is God, the sonne God: and the holye gost God. And yet they are not three Goddes: but one God". After the enumeration of the Three Persons, perhaps Cranmer felt it appropriate to make clear that "the whole three persones: be coeternall together and coequall."

We should remember that the unLatinate would not have the grammatical number and case of Deus to guide them into realising that it is 'in agreement with' the antecedent qui. 

I do have a further suggestion.

Cranmer had a genius for being able to recall in English, not only the sense, but also the sounds of his Latin originals. Vere dignum et iustum est became It is very meet and right ... And monosyllabic God is less euphonious, and less easy to sing to the traditional notes, than ever one God.

None of this affects me personally. I do not say the Novus Ordo, either in Latin or in English. But there is one final oddity about George's decree which I will share with you. 

" ... in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God ..."

As I wrote a few moments ago, we, the Latinate, know what Deus refers back to, bcause of things like case, gender, number, drilled into us early in life. But there may yet be people without our educational advantages ... people in remote peripheral places beyond the reach of World Beating education and m'tutor ... little gatherings of whitewashed cabins at the ends of muddy tracks ... where the only visitor is ever the green An Phost van ... the rich peat smoke rising from the chimneys ... the sort of spot that is for ever quintessentially Cork or Kerry or Kensington ...

In such idyllic spots, the unLatinate peasantry, ungrammared though simple and  wholesome, may be misled by George and his "Holy Spirit God" into thinking that "God" qualifies, not "Your Son", but "Holy Spirit".

I think we may be in a slightly Oops situation ...

ADVENT SUNDAY = LITURGICAL CHANGE (This needs a little Latin) (1)

Well, that's how it was in the 1960s. The Congregation for Divine Worship keeps this venerable tradition going, and, tomorrow, Advent Sunday (as we call it in the Patrimony), a new decree comes to us from the CDW via those always reliable messengers, the CBCEW.

It come with a Rationale signed by +George Stack, who I know must be Irish because, in the name George, the minuscule r is written majuscule R, more Hibernico. I am very pro-Irish.

It concerns the way we end Collects in vernacular forms of the Roman Rite. The basic Latin is:

Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Archbishop George describes this as 'doxological', which I don't think is quite right, But we'll let that pass.

The point of the Decree is that, in the hitherto English ICEL translation of this formula, the Deus is translated "one God". From today henceforth, the "one" is to be omitted.

A paragraph explains the reason for this. Sadly, as a Convert, I often don't quite understand the finer and richer points of Catholic Theology. The CDW point seems to be that the hitherto rendering suggests that "Jesus ... is one god among many". Because I don't understand this, we'll let it pass. But I will remind you that I have a great admiration for the S John Paul era document Liturgiam authenticam. And the new CDW requirement follows that document in conforming the English translation verbatim et litteratim to the Latin. So I can hardly be too critical of that, can I?

Apparently, foreigners don't add "one" to their vernaculars. But ... some of you will be squealing ... we're leaving the EU ...

I'll finish this tomorrow. But one completely non-ironic query: Jungmann says (with scant evidence) that the deus entered the formula in the late Middle Ages. George Stack says that the "doxological phrase was coined in Africa during the fourth century as a means to combat the Arian heresy". Does anyony have the facts about this?

More Lovely

Poor old gentleman. "Palmist", indeed!

Does he ever visit "Pie-chiatrists"? 

Has he got a Pew-donym"?

Were his electoral adventures monitored by Peff-ologists"?

Hardly any wonder that he has problems understanding the teaching of the Church about "Abortion"? Do you think he knows what "Abortion" is? Or does he confuse the female body with Polish soup?

Betcha, he's never read Wodehouse's Psmith ("the P is silent") books.

God bless, er, America.

Is his pset psarrot infected with Pitta-cosis??

Lock him up.

Strike them down, O lord, and lay them low (2)

According to the ancient Carmelite dialect of the Roma Rite, the Devotion for the Recovery of Terra Sancta does not begin until after the Elevation of the Chalice; and it is done, not a prostratis, but ab utroque choro genuflexo alternatim. It is used, roughly, at conventual Masses during Advent and Gesimatide, but not during Eastertide or certain penitential days. The texts (1621) are quite differen from those of Sarum. I give a translated summary here, but enough to enable anybody who cares to, to put the devotion together again. 

The Psalm is the majestic and haunting Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi. 

After Gloria Patri ... Kyrie ... Pater ...

V  O Lord, save the King

R And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

V O Lord, save thy people and bless thine inheritance.

R And govern them and lift them up for ever.

V Peace be within thy walls.

R And plenteousness within thy palaces.

V O Lord, hear our prayer  ...   V The Lord be with you ...

Let us pray. 

 Three prayers follow; 

(1) We beseech thee, O Lord, hear the prayers of thy Church: that, all adversities and errors being put down, she may serve thee in untroubled freedom.

(2) We beseech thee, O Lord, shatter the pride of our enemies both seen and unseen, and with the strength of thy right hand lay their defiance low.

(3) is 'God, from whom all holy desires ...', which those of the Patrimony will recognise; it came into the Anglican Divine Office as the memoria perpetua pro pace at Evensong, from the Sarum Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

All three are in the 'Gregorian' Sacramentary; that is, in the great compendious Prayer-hoard of the Latin Church. When a  particular need arose, those were the days when a clerk dived into that immense resource and found some hard-hitting  and suitable formulae. This was the time before the advent of Liturgical Committees and Commissions and all the other clever-clever dreary layabouts, who respond to "new" needs by sitting down with a pencil and trying to devise fancy and 'relevant' formulae. 

These three old prayers have a penetrating directness about them ... destructis has resonances of pulling a building right down to the ground; elide suggests crushing and shattering; prosterne brings to mind a picture of our enemies flattened with their proud noses well down in the mud. 

Perhaps this is the sort of robust euchological spirit we are going to need as we enter upon this new period of ever more tyrannous oppression.

Strike them down, Lord, and lay them low. (1)

The Leonine Prayers at the foot of the Altar after Mass represent a distictively nineteenth century way of dealing with a perceived need to seek urgent divine interventions in particular necessities. And, of course, there was always the possibility of saying a Votive or of adding additional Votive 'commemorations' to the proper prayers of the Day. (Not to mention the possibilities offered by the Litany form ... how very flexible our Western Liturgy has been.) 

But there was once a practice which brought such ad hoc impetrations into the very heart of the Liturgy itself. Surviving texts look rather like responses to the occupation of Terra Sancta by Islamic forces. And, in terms of liturgical logic, they may not be a million miles away from the motive ascribed by Canon Arthur Couratin to the inclusion of Intercessions in the Byzantine Anaphora at the point they now occupy there; i.e., we secure the Presence of Almighty God upon the Altar so that we can then make use of It to tell Him what we want.

Thus, at Sarum. on certain days, the community was prostrate after the Santus; then, after the Libera nos and before the Pax ...; Psalms 78, 66, and 20 were recited 'in prostratione'; followed by Kyrie ... and Pater ..., versicles and responses; and three collects expressing this intention: ut Terram quam Unigenitus Filius tuus proprio sanguine consecravit, de manibus inimicorum crucis Christi eripiens, restituas cultui Christiano ...

A second part of this will describe the ancient Carmelite devotions.

In the splendid  Altar-ready Sarum Missal produced this year by a learned and devout priest, you will find this provision on pages 330-331. I also gratefully thank Gregory diPippo for setting me on this track.

Psalms are numbered according to the Vulgate. 

Philology

I think ... you could evidentially falsify this if you want to be a spoil-sport ... that the leader of our current de facto regime here in Blighty has recently abandoned two of his favourite 'hot air' rhetorical phrases, World-Class and World-Beating.

A pity. I loved them. They gave me a warm sense of familiarity, and they always had the capacity to set my mind wandering. "World-Beating Health Service" ... Really? Is it quite as bad as that? And then I would construct fantasies of Bojo gazing into camera with that direct, mesmerising look of utterly convincing frank sincerity, and mouthing phrases like:

"Our World-Class radio-active dumps."

"Our World-Beating criminal classes."

"Our World-Class utterly terrible books on Churchill." 

"Our World-Beating National Hypocrisy."

"Our World-Beating Russian Oligarchs."

Et similia.

Lovely!!

The news about the successful  Oxford University Corona vaccine seems to be a matter of considerable rejoicing, except among American providers who had been planning to sell their own vaccines at eight times the price. 

At this very same moment, the University of Cambridge (of Cambridgeshire in Anglia) has informed the Tab Plods that it has lost the diaries of Charles Darwin. Or it thinks it must have done. Some time within the last two decades. If anybody remembers spotting someone, during that period, walking off with ... ...  

There must be a sermon somewhere in this. Or ... better ... a limerick?

BRAVE NEW BRITISH WORLD

BRAVE NEW BRITISH WORLD (1) 

Our present head of regime has launched a whole flotilla ... at least a thousand ships ... of important new 'green' initiatives.

Why do I say a thousand?

Because the Media claim that this is all the result of the powerful influence of his current maitresse en titre. 

Very probably. I suspect that the Slaves of Clio, when they come write up this period, may indeed categorise the lady (purely in the political sense) as a Lady Castlemaine rather than as a Nell Gwynne. When he tires of her, I wonder if he will give her a dukedom for his parting gift. 

As he moves on, perhaps he will honour his progeny by her with the authentically Norman French surname ffitzbojo.

BRAVE NEW BRITISH WORLD (2)

Last Saturday, The Times, once regarded as the organ of the Btitish Establishment and occasionally referred to as The Thunderer, contained a review by one of its retained columnists referring, obiter et iocose, to the head of regime ... a 'Conservative' politician ... as a "sex maniac". I wonder if this is a first ...

The latest scandal in which he has been involved, refusing to sack a senior female minister found to have broken the Ministerial Code, led one civil servant to comment: "We've always been used in this country to a 'good chap' system of government; that people will do the right thing in the end. This shows that Johnson doesn't play by those rules."

SLAVERY ... Queries

(1) ... I put this forward ... no agenda ... just out of curiosity ... Which Saints do we know to have been slave-owners? Saint Philemon, I seem to recall, is on the Byzantine Calendar. And I have one or two other totally tentative enquiries:

(2) Why is there no splendid, eye-catching, monument to those coastal inhabitants of South-West England, whose villages were raided by Algerian Corsairs and who were kidnapped and sold into slavery? (I would nominate Carn Brae, the First and Last Hill, overlooking Land's End; it would be a help to the flagging Cornish tourist industry. It could sell cheap replica Arab currency from the Slavery period, together with other tawdry trinkets of the sort that the lower orders rather enjoy. 'Escape from Your Arab Slaver' games based loosely on the Monopoly principle would be a big hit. Children could be given 'Arab slave manacle' sets to play with. 'Slaver Whips' might interest those with exotic tastes. Wealthier and transpontine tourists would willingly purchase models of Arab slaving ships. Internet games enabling one to target and sink incoming corsairs ... etc. etc..)

(3) Is there a monument near Lepanto commemorating the glorious liberation of the Christian (and other) galley slaves exploited by the Turks? Where could I find video-clips of Mr Erdogan apologising for the galley-slave system? (What a shame Papa Montini, such a silly man, gave those Lepanto banners back to Brother Turk: they could have featured in a Lepanto Liberation Shrine.)

(4) I feel pretty sure the Incas and the Aztecs will have had slaves. Did slaves number among those who were flayed alive and viventes had their hearts cut out? What monuments exist commemorating the admirable elimination by Catholic Spain of these horrible indigenous cultures, resulting in the liberation of their slaves?

(5) What massive international studies are on hand into the African chieftains who enslaved members of 'lesser' tribes, and sold them on to the dealers, who then disposed of them to European slave traders? What are the Slavery connections of the Benin Bronzes culture? When will the bronzes be melted down and the bronze used for a great Monument erected to British sailors who lost their lives in putting down the slave trade?

(6) What stage has been reached in the campaign to have Washington (and Washington) renamed? Are there any countries so politically incorrect as to have portraits of Slaver Washington on their wretched currencies? Could we have him postumously tried for treason, and his remains hung up at Tyburn? Why don't we have annual celebrations of this infamous man's demise, centred on bonfires made up of cherry trees and with Washington effigies on top ... processions ... street parties ... on the day of his death?