Sunday 31 March 2013
Pilgrims to St James Station
I just noticed that St James Station in Sydney has a scallop shell, the symbol of St James, on top of the awning at the entrance on Elizabeth St.
Saturday 30 March 2013
A Little Grandeur
This is an article by the journalist Christopher Pearson in today's Australian newspaper. I hope I haven't broken any copyright, but I thought it shows how the example of Christ at Easter, and His context in Israel gives us a message of hope. Christopher Pearson also shows us that words have a power to move and they can express the grandeur that God has shared with us.
Words with the power to move
CHRISTOPHER PEARSON
MARCH 30, 2013, 1:31AM
CHRISTOPHER PEARSON
MARCH 30, 2013, 1:31AM
ON Tuesday, after church, I was taken home by a Vietnamese taxi driver. The radio was on and an announcer played Boney M's version of Rivers of Babylon to commemorate the 25th anniversary of its release.
The driver, a knowledgeable Buddhist, was more than just politely surprised at my knowing the text in Latin and the King James version, and the assurance that in Latin Rite and Orthodox congregations across the world the Lamentations of Jeremiah would be being sung in musical settings - most of them ancient and very formally demanding - lasting many hours during the course of Holy Week.
If there is a postmodern lesson to be learned in all this, I suppose it's that civilisations never quite abandon or forget their meta-narratives. They just morph like this one into ganja-sodden Rastafarian versions for the disco generation, where the only technical developments are that some of the voices are entirely studio created and half the line-up lip-synch.
The liturgy in which the Lamentations are heard is called Tenebrae, the lessons delivered in the darkness. They are the psalms and readings for Matins and Lauds appointed for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week, normally sung the night before in a near-darkened church where one of the few candles is extinguished at the end of each psalm. In Catholic churches in Australia, which are often poor, mean buildings, it can be a distinct advantage not to be able to see where you are and to have to fall back on the texts and the music.
The texts are structured around the Babylonian Exile, which ended in 538BC. In Judaism it is seen as the period where God punished his chosen people for their faithlessness in straying after strange gods, before restoring them to the promised land and allowing them to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
In the Christian liturgy, the narrative of exile is conflated with the advent and rejection of Christ as the Messiah, his crucifixion and the new covenant. It is a season of sackcloth and ashes, transfigured by the prospect of Easter and renewal.
Jeremiah's lamentations over Jerusalem are plangent at any time and it is arguable that there is no year's Lent in living memory when the church has had more need or urgent occasion to invoke them.
Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo: facta est quasi vidua domina gentium: princeps provinciarum facta est sub tribute. "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how is she reduced to paying tribute."
Plorans ploravit in nocte, et lacrimae ejus in maxillis ejus: non est qui consoletur eam ex omnibus caris ejus: omnes amici ejus spreverent eam, et facti sunt inimici. "She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all who love her she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies."
If words such as these have the power to move you, read them over slowly aloud the way you encounter poetry for the first time. If the Latin is more of a distraction than a help, disregard it. If you have the luxury of time, familiarise yourself with the texts and Google them in performance. The Gregorian chant version, augmented with Tomas Luis de Victoria's settings of the responsories, is probably the best-loved. Couperin's Lecons de Tenebres is ravishing in a different way; a triumph of baroque minimalism, once heard, never forgotten.
Migravit Judas propter afflictionem, et multitudinem servitutis: habitavit inter gentes, nec invenit requiem: omnes persecutors ejus apprehenderunt eam inter angustias. "Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits."
Vitae Sion lugent eo quod non sint qui veniant ad solemnitatem: omnes portae ejus destructae: sacerdotes ejus gementes: virgines ejus squalidae, et ipsa oppressa amaritudine. "The paths of Zion mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness."
In his commentary on the Way of the Cross at the Roman Forum during Holy Week 2005, days before he was elected pope, Joseph Ratzinger talked about "the filth that defiles the church". He was the first person in a position of great authority to do so in many years and took unprecedented steps to expunge it but got virtually no credit for doing so in most of the media.
Jeremiah's lament over Jerusalem tells us: Sordes ejus in pedibus ejus, nec recordata est finis sui: deposita est vehementer, non habens consolatorem. "Her filthiness is in her skirts, she remembereth not her last end; therefore she has been overthrown, she had no comforter."
In among the lamentations and the penitential Psalms there are signs of hope; not least, St Paul's recapitulation of the Last Supper.
Also fresh in my mind is a lesson from St Augustine on the Psalms: "I would to God that the ungodly who now try us were converted, and so were on trial with us. Yet, though they continue to try us, let us not hate them: for we know not whether any of them will continue to the end in his evil ways. And mostly, when thou thinkest thyself to be hating thine enemy, thou hatest thy brother, and knowest it not."
THE AUSTRALIAN
WWW.THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU | THE HEART OF THE NATION
WWW.THEAUSTRALIAN.COM.AU | THE HEART OF THE NATION
Wednesday 27 March 2013
Bethlehem Tart
I have learned to call this expensive pastry delicacy a Portugese tart.
Then I found that in Portugal, they are called Belem tarts, after the city of their origin.
Now I learn that Belem is the Portugese (and Spanish) form of Bethlehem, so they are correctly Bethlehem tarts.
- Posted using BlogPress
Then I found that in Portugal, they are called Belem tarts, after the city of their origin.
Now I learn that Belem is the Portugese (and Spanish) form of Bethlehem, so they are correctly Bethlehem tarts.
- Posted using BlogPress
Tuesday 26 March 2013
The Trouble with Atheism
I am watching less and less broadcast TV, but there are plenty of interesting things available on other platforms. For example, the newspaper Sydney Morning Herald offers a programme called "The Trouble with Atheism" by an English journalist called Rod Liddle.
This programme is not a defence of religion, but it points out the limits of the questions that science can answer.
A few points that I remember from the programme are:
One of the most used arguments against religion is that Darwin gives a scientific explanation to phenomena which previously seemed to require God. However, Darwin's theories are not unchanging, and are being refined by people such as Professor Jeffrey H. Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh who is trying to better understand how new features of a living species come into being.
David Stack, a historian from Reading University examines the influence of Darwin on 19th and 20th century thinking, and some of it is not pretty. For example, Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton was encouraged by Darwin's ideas to examine the traits of various populations, such as criminals and certain races. This work became known as the science of Eugenics. As Rod Liddle says, if there are suggestions that the result of work like this is that certain human populations should be sterilised or reduced in some way, most people reject the idea. But is it science that makes us reject it or something else?
Some scientists examine what happened in the few seconds after the Big Bang, but they have nothing to say about the second before it. The philosophy of existence is different to the scientific search for mechanisms.
I would recommend watching this programme, it is a useful test of the claim that science will answer all our problems and provide a rational guide to life. As Hamlet said, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
This programme is not a defence of religion, but it points out the limits of the questions that science can answer.
A few points that I remember from the programme are:
One of the most used arguments against religion is that Darwin gives a scientific explanation to phenomena which previously seemed to require God. However, Darwin's theories are not unchanging, and are being refined by people such as Professor Jeffrey H. Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh who is trying to better understand how new features of a living species come into being.
David Stack, a historian from Reading University examines the influence of Darwin on 19th and 20th century thinking, and some of it is not pretty. For example, Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton was encouraged by Darwin's ideas to examine the traits of various populations, such as criminals and certain races. This work became known as the science of Eugenics. As Rod Liddle says, if there are suggestions that the result of work like this is that certain human populations should be sterilised or reduced in some way, most people reject the idea. But is it science that makes us reject it or something else?
Some scientists examine what happened in the few seconds after the Big Bang, but they have nothing to say about the second before it. The philosophy of existence is different to the scientific search for mechanisms.
I would recommend watching this programme, it is a useful test of the claim that science will answer all our problems and provide a rational guide to life. As Hamlet said, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Monday 25 March 2013
Saturday 23 March 2013
Wednesday 20 March 2013
Monday 18 March 2013
Saturday 16 March 2013
Tuesday 12 March 2013
videos from the Camino
I have rearranged the YouTube videos from the Camino into this playlist. I will put these in a fixed place in this blog rather than a blog post as soon as I work out how to do this.
Sunday 10 March 2013
Camino in France
A good description of the Camino routes in France which lead to the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
Tuesday 5 March 2013
Monday 4 March 2013
Pilgrimage of the 88 temples
Last Saturday I was finishing my morning walk and met a man who was training to walk the Pilgrimage of 88 temples on Shikoku Island in Japan. This is sometimes called the Henro walk, since henro is the Japanese word for pilgrimage. Apparently this is something Buddhists in Japan aim to do when they reach 60, though it is a challenging 1,200km walk to visit all the temples.
Do You Hear the People Sing?
Do you hear the people sing?
It is the 5th June 1832.
A 30 year old Victor Hugo was writing a play in the Tuileries Garden when he heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of Les Halles. Instead of returning home, he went to investigate.
The gun shots were from the Paris student uprising against the Emperor Louis-Philippe.
A 51 year old nun, Sr Rosalie Rendu, from the order of Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul had been working with the poor for many years. Conditions were bad and there had been a cholera spot epidemic the year before, in 1831. One of her works was looking after the wounded from the periodic riots and revolutions in Paris.
This order of nuns is recalled in Hugo's novel Les Miserables. The daughters of charity are mentioned in his novel when Jean Valjean leaves Cosette to be cared by them.
19 year old Frederic Ozanam, was a law student who also wrote for Paris newspapers. He met with a group of friends to discuss the situation in Paris and what they could do about it.
He was encouraged to do something, not just talk about it.
Remember that the corner Vinnies stores, the thousands of members in their conferences and the large organisations run by Vinnies, such as Matt Talbot, all started in the chaos of the fights between republicans, monarchists and bonapartists in the 50 or so years after the French Revolution. Sometimes people seem to need chaos to make them do something.
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
It is the 5th June 1832.
A 30 year old Victor Hugo was writing a play in the Tuileries Garden when he heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of Les Halles. Instead of returning home, he went to investigate.
The gun shots were from the Paris student uprising against the Emperor Louis-Philippe.
A 51 year old nun, Sr Rosalie Rendu, from the order of Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul had been working with the poor for many years. Conditions were bad and there had been a cholera spot epidemic the year before, in 1831. One of her works was looking after the wounded from the periodic riots and revolutions in Paris.
This order of nuns is recalled in Hugo's novel Les Miserables. The daughters of charity are mentioned in his novel when Jean Valjean leaves Cosette to be cared by them.
19 year old Frederic Ozanam, was a law student who also wrote for Paris newspapers. He met with a group of friends to discuss the situation in Paris and what they could do about it.
He was encouraged to do something, not just talk about it.
By this time, Rosalie Rendu was very well known for her work in the poor districts of Paris, so like many other people, Ozanam went to ask her advice.
In 1833, Ozanam started the Catholic lay organisation, The Society of St Vincent De Paul. There were 2000 members of the St Vincent de Paul organisation when he died 20 years later.
Remember that the corner Vinnies stores, the thousands of members in their conferences and the large organisations run by Vinnies, such as Matt Talbot, all started in the chaos of the fights between republicans, monarchists and bonapartists in the 50 or so years after the French Revolution. Sometimes people seem to need chaos to make them do something.
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