Why are you still here?

New site.
New blog.

Rokuzayemon is moving, please update your links, RSS etc.

Behold my new website. Tremble at its blog and despair.

Almost all the contents of this here blog (http://rokuzayemon.blogspot.com.au) have been transferred to the new site. rokuzayemon.blogspot.com.au will no longer be updated. Although I may get round to providing links to the new location of popular posts.

Update. I am going to repost this every month or so to remind your feed readers etc.

Transcriptions and translations

Last year a librarian in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek discovered previously unknown homilies by Origen of Alexandria. Alex Poulos, a student at the Catholic University of America, offers transcriptions and translations of some of the new materials.

We must be told

Why is Stephen Merchant now doing advertising for Westpac's small business services? Does Ricky Gervais know?

The Attack on Kirribilli

On 26th January 2013 the peaceful Sydney suburb of Kirribilli was assaulted by land, sea and air.  This resulted in no loss of life for the defenders and no change to their system of government. The assault was no doubt commanded by the military dictator of New South Wales.* In other news the government of Queensland put tanks into the streets of Brisbane, doubtless to quell unrest, as part of the imposition of martial law.

*Actually Professor Marie Bashir is a lovely lady, it is just that the photo of her in military uniform is irresistible.

A few years ago this would have been about text messages (or: Another Reason to steer clear of Facebook)

Oh yes please. I would like the "comedians" on the misnamed Footy Show* to remove a photograph of my child from the internet to make fun of it by comparing it to some cabbage eared loon. Sign me up to Facebook AT ONCE!

Yes I know it's David Knox – who has never expressed a non-standard opinion on anything – but any stick will do with which to beat the Farcebook. If you prefer, here is The Australian.

*Given the Australian predilection for Rugby League and AFL (q.v.) it should be The Handy Show.

Beer and sausages

Here in Australia, for some crazy reason, if you look for sausages you can easily find something containing a dead cow. No, my dears, those are beef sausages. Sausages have to contain pork.

That is something this bloke clearly understood.

The end of the Middle Ages (again)

The last Beguine, Marcella Pattyn, has recently died. This being the Economist there is the usual oogedy-boogedy about the Middle Ages, sexism, heretic burnign and so on, but it is an interesting article all the same.

These places were not convents, but beguinages, and the women in them were not nuns, but Beguines. In these communities, which sprang up spontaneously in and around the cities of the Low Countries from the early 13th century, women led lives of prayer, chastity and service, but were not bound by vows. They could leave; they made their own rules, without male guidance; they were encouraged to study and read, and they were expected to earn their keep by working, especially in the booming cloth trade. They existed somewhere between the world and the cloister, in a state of autonomy which was highly unusual for medieval women and highly disturbing to medieval men.

Rest in peace.

UPDATE: Obituary from The Daily Telegraph (UK).

Mickey Mouse Trap

The Walt Disney Company takes a vigorous approach to the protection of its copyrights. So it was a  little surprising to see who made the mousetrap I was using to deal with a recent rodent infestation.

Funky book cover

Its ten minutes past six in the Bavarian State Library on 10th September 2012.

I think it's time to go home. (Apparently I am late to this party).

The St Edmund Campion Missal

The Chant Café posts a review of the St Edmund Campion Missal – a people's Missal for the Extraordinary form of the Mass.

Simply put, the Saint Edmund Campion Missal and Hymnal from Corpus Christi Watershed is a brilliant new Sunday/Feast day hand-missal for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. It is skillfully edited, and without exaggeration, it is one of the most beautiful modern books I have seen or used. It is a full missal and hymnal, containing not only the Sunday propers and readings in both Latin and English, but also the complete Kyriale, six versions of the Credo, nearly 20 pages of congregational chants for use throughout the year, over 150 pages of orthodox, traditional congregational hymns, various prayers for private prayer before, during and after Mass, and for other sacraments and rites in the Extraordinary Form (such as marriage, confirmation, benediction and funerals).

No word on whether it has supplements of national propers in other English speaking countries, like the Baronius Press hand Missal.

Descendit ad inferos

3 "Descended into hell"

…

One can try to deal with problems either by denying their existence or by facing up to them. The first method is the more comfortable one, but only the second leads anywhere. Instead of pushing the question aside, then, should we not learn to see that this article of faith, which liturgically is associated with Holy Saturday in the Church's year, is particularly close to our day and is to a particular degree the experience of our [twentieth] century? On Good Friday our gaze remains fixed on the crucified Christ, but Holy Saturday is the day of the "death of God", the day that expresses the unparalleled experience of our age, anticipating the fact that God is simply absent, that the grave hides him, that he no longer awakes, no longer speaks, so that one no longer needs to gainsay him but can simply overlook him. "God is dead and we have killed him." this saying of Nietzsche's belongs linguistically to the tradition of Christian Passiontide piety; it expresses the content of Holy Saturday, "descended into hell".

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, Ignatius (2004).
Part Two: Jesus Christ, II The Development of Faith in Christ in the Christological Articles of the Creed, 3 "Descended into hell", (p. 294).

An Allegory

I have this brother. He's very overbearing. Our mother arranged for us to receive three delicious meals every day. They are delicious and nutritious. The balanced diet everyone is always talking about. Nevertheless, every day at every meal – EVERY DAY, EVERY MEAL, WITHOUT FAIL – when these meals arrive from the delivery service, he just throws them away and goes to get cheap, takeaway food. He never asks me. I don't think it even occurs to him that I – or for that matter our mother – might object. She hardly ever raises her voice in protest. She is worried she will drive him away. It is true that sometimes the food Mum has arranged is an acquired taste. You have to get used to it. Above all you have to take it all in, meal after meal, and then you begin to understand the subtlety of the flavours and you see the larger picture. In any case the food never tastes *nasty*, it is just not what we are used to. And it is always very nutritious and exactly what our mother planned for us.

The Pride of Place

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,  General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2003).

Greek teaching in the Unided Stades

Rod Decker provides A Recommended Bibliography for Beginning Greek Students. He lists different kinds of books (texts, grammars, lexicons, concordances) etc. by year of study. For a third year student he recommends as a lexicon the following:

Liddell & Scott (the standard lexicon for classical Greek; it does include NT material). “Liddell,” BTW, is pronounced “little” (not “li-dell”). The surname of the co-author of this lexicon, Henry George Liddell (the father of Alice in Wonderland, believe it or not), is given the pronunciation  /ˈlɪdəl/ by Wikipedia (at least it did when I wrote this) not /ˈlɪtl̩/. I was puzzled by this apparent typo before I realised Decker is relying on the voiced American T.

Remember Anamnesis

Behold the homepage of Anamnesis, the bulletin of the liturgical commission of the Polish Bishops' conference. ("Anamnsis" at the top of the page is simply a typo, it is of course simply the Greek word for the memorial sacrifice of Num 10:10, alluded to in Lk 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:25).

In 2004 I discovered that the editio typica tertia of Missale Romanum included some new saints in the calendar. This is the Universal Calendar, also called the General Calendar. Local churches at the diocesan or national level are expected to modify the calendar usually by adding local saints or sometimes by increasing the importance of the celebration.

This being the Missal – to be used at Mass – it does not have texts for the Liturgy of the Hours (the "Divine Office", often simply just the "Office"). Using as a search text the collect (which is the same as the concluding prayer in the Office) of one of the additions to the calendar, I discovered that the Polish Bishops had put the Latin texts of additions to the Divine Office online. Additions to the liturgical books are published in the journal of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Notitiae which was not, and is not, published online. However all the decrees from the Congregation pertaining to the Universal Church, including such additions to the calendar are, as a matter of course, published in Latin in Anamnesis.

Preaching and the Biblical Languages

The Rev. Gerald Ambulance discusses the problem of preaching.

Greek is another good time-killer. Try this kind of thing: "Now the word translated 'preaching' here is the Greek word kerygma. And that comes from the verb kerysso, meaning 'to preach'. So when St Paul says 'preaching', what that word really means is 'preaching'." (Stephen Tomkins, My Ministry Manual by Rev. Gerald Ambulance, p.31).

Rod Decker, Preaching and the Biblical Languages: Garnish or Entrée Mellon or Mantra? has a more serious approach.

Some extracts.

A really bad week

On Sunday 11th July 2010 the Archbishop of Buenos Aires attacked the Bill, then before the Argentine Senate, to create homosexual marriage. The Archbishop described it as a "destructive attack on God's plan." The President of Argentina hit back the following day.

Mrs. Kirchner harshly criticized church leaders on Monday, saying that their discourse on the issue resembled “the times of the Crusades” and that they failed to acknowledge how socially liberal Argentina had become.

Another theme of Cristina Kirchner's presidency has been demanding that the UK hand over the Falkland Islands to Argentina, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants.

Breaking news from Australia: The Papacy Returns to Italy!

On Thursday morning I learnt that white smoke was appearing, from a text message sent from England. At first I flicked between television channels. Among Australian terrestrial channels there was a live broadcast from St Peter's Square on Channel 7 Sunrise and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). I could also get Sky News, Fox News and CNN. The ABC seemed to have the cleanest picture (fewer annoying graphics) so I settled in to that channel. Then they hauled on Paul Collins, Papal historian and ex-priest. Men leave the priesthood for different reasons but my general experience is they are damaged goods. They are not a likely source of balanced and informative comment.

In 2001 Collins resigned from priestly ministry because of a dispute with the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over his book Papal Power. 

In other words he left in a fit of pique.

The Jesuit Pope

Francis, Bishop of Rome, Servant of the Servants of God, is a member of the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits.

Let's watch Cardinal Tauran again (1:06:46), followed by the Pope (1:16:45). You should be able to drop the scrubber quite easily.