The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Have a look at this blog by Augustine. (I have put it in the British blogs section of the blogroll but this is a guess and I'll correct it if necessary.) The title "Love of your love" is taken from the Confessions of St Augustine: "For love of your love I shall retrace my wicked ways..." (Conf Book 2, chapter 1) This part of the confessions is where St Augustine describes his adolescence and repents of the lust to which he had given in at that time of his life. It is inspiring reading and will strike a chord with many young men today. ( Latin text - English translation ) I discovered Augustine via his request to join us in the arctic cyberpod . This is top-secret so don't tell anyone.

Fr Zuhlsdorf at What Does the Prayer Really Say has posted a "cheat sheet" kindly supplied by a fellow priest. This has the people's responses at Mass according to the new ICEL translation which was recently granted " Recognitio " by the Congregation for Divine Worship. We are not allowed to use these texts yet but have been encouraged to help people to prepare for them. This is a good start. PeoplesMassCard-NewTranslation - Upload a Document to Scribd Read this document on Scribd: PeoplesMassCard-NewTranslation Here is a sheet for priests. To be honest, I say all of the "xecreto" prayers in Latin when I say Mass in the usus recentior in English. I recommend this practice to brother priests since many of them are also used in the usus antiquior and it is helpful to know them by heart. Nevertheless, those who say them in English will find this sheet helpful. Three of the texts on this sheet are said out loud: ...

This morning, the lecture at the Faith Summer Session was given by Dr Christina Read. It was delightful to hear her referred to as such by Lucy Nash who is this year’s conference chairman since I have known Christina since was a teenager. Christina’s doctorate was on the work of Hans Urs Von Balthasar. She is married with three children and was speaking about the sacrament of marriage. Her talk was a good and solid presentation to the young people on the goods of marriage; she explained very competently how contraception contradicts the essentially life-giving nature of the marriage act; and she brought in many personal touches to the topic. These were at times quite moving, as for example when she spoke of how amazing it was for her to look at her children and realise that they were the result of the love of her and her husband in co-operation with God’s creative will. Christina’s talk was from a prepared text so I expect that it will be published in Faith Magazine at some point. It ...

Actually, all this reasonable stuff about computers and the internet isn't going to fool anyone, folks, so we might as well tell it like it is. Above is the arctic cyberpod from which Fr Z and myself, the NLM , the Curt Jester and a few other secret bloggers send out death rays to modernist computers round the world, post inaccurate texts, compose viruses that will make computers used to compose clown liturgies give off incense through the air vents, and generally by such means bring the free world to its knees. Our latest planned jape was to devise a fiendishly inaccurate version of the ICEL texts and pepper the internet with this inaccurate, unfinished, unapproved and unduly altered text that was so totally lacking in integrity that it would cause general mayhem and confusion. Sadly when we heard of the need to write to the USCCB Secretariat of Divine Worship, 3211 Fourth Street, NE, Washington, DC 20017, our plans just collapsed into dust and ashes - we were completely foiled....

The text of the new translation of the Ordinary of the Mass is available at the USCCB website . At the moment, this is a pdf. I wonder whether anyone has already stripped the text out to post it in more straightforwardly. There is a good discussion on copyright in the article The new ICEL translation and Creative Commons options at Cantemus Domino. Jeffrey Tucker has written to ICEL as follows: I know of 10 composers who have already worked on new settings of the new Mass text. In doing this, they are responding to Cardinal Arinze's hope that having the texts available will "facilitate the devising of musical settings for the parts of the Mass." They would like to post these compositions online for free download for everyone. Your copyright notice does not seem to specify whether they are permitted to do this without paying ICEL. Can you please provide me a public and clear answer to this question? The first answer that he received asked for the names of the websites an...

Woldingham School is in a beautiful setting just north of Junction 6 of the M25 in the valley of Marden Park. Unfortunately, since it is a valley, mobile phone reception is almost non-existent. Taking lunch at a nearby pub yesterday, I got a vodafone signal but only 2G reception on the mobile modem. There is no wifi at the school available to me. Hence blogging may be a little patchy until Friday – as will responding to email, Facebook etc. I'm sending this while having a cup of coffee at the service station on the M25 - where they have free wifi. (Remember also that I moderate comments so can only post them when I have access to the internet.)

Since Monday afternoon, I have been at Woldingham School in Surrey for the Faith Summer Session. This is an annual conference for students and young people – we have about 240 here this week, including about 30 priests and 16 seminarians. Each day, there are two principal lectures, the theme this year being “Male and Female, He Created Them”, looking at the role of the sexes in the plan of God. There is Mass each day, as well as Lauds and Compline in common. One evening there is a Penance Service with individual confessions. There are plenty of social activities too, sports in the afternoon, or trips out. One evening is given over to entertainments and another to a Ceilidh. There is always a very good atmosphere. The youngsters have great fun in the company of other Catholics; friendships made at these events are lasting. For the priests and seminarians, there is an opportunity to share experiences, get advice and generally enjoy each other’s company. Faith is not a traditionalist grou...

Parish clergy know that the doorbell can often by a wretched thing. I think that there is some kind of electronic interference that means once I have made a cup of tea, sat down and take the first sip, it sets the doorbell off. Today was different - I knew that there were two deliveries that might arrive this morning. One would be a new wireless modem from Tiscali to whom I have now transferred my phone line and who should soon be giving me some faster broadband access. For £20 per month, they are promising me 8Mb broadband, phone line rental and free calls any time in the UK and to places like the USA, Canada and Australia. Now you'll pile in and tell me what terrible problems you have with Tiscali ... It wasn't the Tiscali modem but something better: my order from St Philip's Books . My good friend Christopher Zealley has a bookshop in Oxford very near the Catholic Chaplaincy, and a thriving mail-order business. He had a stall at the Merton Conference which he stocked wi...

Fr John Boyle was photographer-in-chief at the Pontifical High Mass on Friday and he has posted a slide show of his photos on Flickr including the above.

This post is a belated gift promised to Dr Laurence Hemming who kindly gave a champagne reception on the occasion of his birthday. At the reception, Fr Guy Nicholls of the Birmingham Oratory reminded me of the National Pastoral Congress in 1980, organised by the late Archbishop Derek Worlock who was Archbishop of Liverpool. At the end of the Congress, the liturgy was apparently rather grand, prompting one of the participants to ask His Grace whether this was not "triumphalist" and therefore contrary to the spirit of Vatican II. Fr Nicholls caused the collpase of many parties and much snorting of champagne through clerical noses by suggesting that Archbishop Worlock's reply would be appropriate in the context of the Merton Conference: "It's not triumph. It's joy!"

One or two people have commented that UK Catholic priest blogging was a bit quiet last week. Here you can see the reason: several of us were at Merton. Above, left to right, are: Frs Paul Harrison ( Thoughts from Walney Island ), John Boyle ( South Ashford Priest ), Ray Blake ( St Mary Magdalen, Brighton ), Sean Finnegan ( Valle Adurni ) and myself. Mac McLernon ( Mulier Fortis ) and Damien Thompson ( Holy Smoke ) came for the Thursday Solemn Mass and Pontifical Vespers. (Apologies for the poor quality of the photo.) Fr Hunwicke of the ( Liturgical Notes ) was also there, and so were the Anglican Seminarians of massinformation . One of them has posted this video in their article Latin Mass Society - Merton 2008 . It shows the procession at the beginning of the Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Rt Rev Emmanuel Marie de St Jean, Abbot of St Mary's Abbey, Lagrasse . Near the beginning of the procession is Fr George Mary Roth of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. He says Mass ev...