With the new Roman Missal in my hand, and also with the Processional Book prepared by the Society of St Gregory for the Bishops Conference of England and Wales, I decided to have a go at writing some music for the Communion Antiphon for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time when I am next cantoring at my local parish. I used the first antiphon from the missal and Psalm 20 (19) from the Revised Grail for the verses.

Tell me what you think. It isn’t supposed to be high art, or Gregorian chant, and honestly, I am not much of a musician let alone a composer. It is supposed to be easily singable by a parish not too interested in music while they go to communion.

UPDATE: I took this into Paul Taylor at our Office for Worship this morning and he had a bit of a play with it, altering the timing of the antiphon at one point and changing some of the chords. I like how it sounds now, so here are the new files (thanks Paul!):

Communion Antiphon for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time PDF Score

Communion Antiphon for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time MP3 file

Communion Antiphon for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Midi File

“Everything Amounts to our Seeking of God.”
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515 – October 4th,1582)

Anima Women’s Network Conference
Inspiring the Mansion of the Heart: St Teresa of Avila

Saturday 15th October, 9 am to 1 pm

Program:
9 am Welcome & Registration
9.30 Saint Teresa: Guide and Doctor of Soul
10 -10.45 Contemplative Prayer in our Life: Fr Benedict le Volpe OFM (Conv)
11-11.45 Morning Tea & Discussion
12 -12.30 Finding St Teresa’s Castle: Reflection
12.30 – 1 pm Announcements & Close

Cardinal Knox Lecture Room
Knox Centre
Cnr Albert & Lansdowne Sts
East Melbourne
Conference Cost: $20 or $15 Concession
Anima Membership Cost per Annum: $15 or $10 Concession

Saint Teresa was the realistic, vital and warm Carmelite spiritual reformer of 16th century Spain. Her collaboration with Saint John of the Cross contributed to a new springtime in the Church which at that time had been fractured by wars, scandals and the Reformation. Her spiritual reflections are among the great classics of the spiritual life and yet, her Way to Perfection and The Interior Castle have so much to offer women and men in the 21st century and to the difficult times for the Church today.

Contact: Anna Krohn
annascwlblog@bigpond.com
Anima Phone: 0487 683 050

Auf Deutsch, we call it “Schadenfreude”. There isn’t a word for it in English, but a long one would be “laughing-at-hurt-feelings”. If your day has been a little dull, and if you find the idea that someone could have a legal right not to have their feelings hurt a little bit funny, have a listen to Patrick Cook on ABC Radio’s Counterpoint program on the recent Andrew Bolt case. Just remember, Cook is described on the ABC website as a “satririst, cartoonist, commentator”. That’s definitely the way I like my commentary: with several heaped spoonfuls of satire.

Okay, for those who don’t have the full texts yet, here are this week’s from the new Roman Missal. They are still being used at daily mass, so it isn’t too late to take a look at them. Commentary follows (although don’t expect a Fr. Z!):

Entrance Antiphon:
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Ps 129:3-4
Lord, who could stand?
But with you is found forgiveness,
O God of Israel.

Collect
May your grace, O Lord, we pray,
at all times go before us and follow after
and make us always determined
to carry out good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Prayer over the Offerings
Accept, O Lord, the prayers of your faithful
with the sacrificial offerings,
that, through these acts of devotedness,
we may pass over to the glory of heaven.
Through Christ our Lord.

Communion Antiphon
The rich suffer want and go hungry, Cf. Ps 33:11
but those who seek the Lord lack no blessing.
Or:
When the Lord appears, we shall be like him, 1 Jn 3:2
for we shall see him as he is.

Prayer after Communion
We entreat your majesty most humbly, O Lord,
that, as you feed us with the nourishment
which comes from the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,
so you may make us sharers of his divine nature.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Latin

Antiphona ad Introitum:
Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Ps 129:3-4
Domine, quis sustinebit?
Quia apud te propitiato est,
Deus Israel.

Collect
Tua nos, quaesumus, Domine, gratia
Semper et praeveniat et sequatur,
Ac bonis operibus
Iugiter praestet esse intentos.
Per Dominum…

Prayer over the Offerings
Suscipe, Domine, fidelium preces
Cum oblationibus hostiarum,
Us, per haec piae devotionis officia,
Ad caelestem gloriam transeamus.
Per Christum…

Communion Antiphon
Divites eguerunt et esurient, Cf. Ps 33:11
Quaerentes autem Dominum non minuentur omni bono.
Or:
Cum apparuerit Dominus, similes ei erimus, 1 Jn 3:2
Quoniam videbimus eum sicuti est.

Prayer after Communion
Maiestatem tuam, Domine, suppliciter deprecamur,
ut, sicut nos Corporis et Sanguinis sacrosancti pascis alimento,
ita divinae naturae facias esse consortes.
Per Christum…

Old ICEL

Antiphona ad Introitum:
If you, O Lord, laid bare our guilt, Ps 129:3-4
who could endure it?
But you are forgiving,
God of Israel.

Collect
Lord, our help and guide,
make your love the foundation of our lives.
May our love for you express itself
in our eagerness to do good for others.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Prayer over the Offerings
Lord, accept the prayers and gifts
we offer in faith and love.
May this eucharist bring us to your glory.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Communion Antiphon
The rich suffer want and go hungry, Cf. Ps 33:11
but nothing shall be lacking to those who fear the Lord.

Or:
When the Lord is revealed we shall be like him, 1 Jn 3:2
for we shall see him as he is.

Prayer after Communion
Almighty Father,
may the body and blood of your Son
give us a share in his life,
for he is Lord for ever and ever.

COMMENTS

Blind Freddy can see that the new texts are closer to the Latin. Take the Post-Communion prayer as an example. Every word of the entire first line of the new Missal translation – “We entreat your majesty most humbly, O Lord” (except perhaps “we” and “your”) – was on the forbidden vocabulary list in the Old ICEL, so it was completely omitted in the earlier translation as so much useless guff. Note that old ICEL consistently repeated replaced “Domine” with “Father”. Christ’s Body and Blood (note the capitals) are “most holy” (remember that the adjective “holy” was dropped from the people’s offertory prayer). But most significantly, from a theological point of view, note how Old ICEL completely obscured the important Scriptural reference to the doctrine of theosis contained in 2 Peter 1:4: “sharers of the divine nature”.

We see the same thing in the “Prayer over the Offerings” (not “Gifts” any more). “Prayers and gifts we offer in faith and love” are now “the prayers of your faithful with the sacrificial offerings”. The language of “sacrifice”, so obviously present in the Latin offertory prayers, is restored in the new English translation. But I must say I love the phrase “these acts of devotedness” (translating “haec piae devotionis officia”). I am reminded of the comment of John MacDonald on the Blake Prize, how the judges would run a mile from anything that smacks of true religious devotion. I wonder if any of them were former members of the Old ICEL?

As for the Collect (bypassing the comparison to the old translation for the moment), I bet every priest who reads it puts an “us” on the end of the second line (as in “go before us and follow after us“). The celebrant at St Patrick’s Cathedral today did. I wasn’t surprised. But you can see the dilemma of the translators. The “us” is in the very first line in the Latin, and occurs only once. Two “us’s” in the English (as in “go before us and follow after us”) would, I think, surely have been too much. But where to stick the “us” in the English? Would it have been better to say “go before and follow after us”? You be the judge. Of course, the old ICEL completely misses this image entirely, and replaces it with “foundation” – which isn’t there at all. For that matter, note how “grace” in the old ICEL translation is replaced by “love”. Language of grace, as much as of merit, was almost completely omitted from the old translation of the Collects, leading to the accusatio of semi-Pelagianism. God’s grace goes before us and follows after us as we “intend” towards good works (the English “determined” misses that dynamic action a bit too…). For Fr Zuhlsdorf’s commentary, see here.

Finally, turning to the very interesting case of the new Entrance and Communion Antiphons. Fr Bosco Peters is certainly right: the new antiphons have been greatly affected by the Revised Grail Version of the Psalms. In part I can understand this: I have never been very happy with the discordance so often encountered in the Responsive Psalm when the Response is a verse from the Psalm itself, but appears in different translation than the verse. And yet this also points to a further point of interest: IF the Holy See did actually intentionally replace former strict translations from the Latin Antiphons with the corresponding passages from the Revised Grail, does this not point out that the Holy See wishes us to sing the antiphons together WITH the relevant and corresponding verses set down in the Graduale (or the Processional – note: Simple English Propers uses the Revised Grail Version for the psalm verses but not for the antiphons)?

And yet the translators have not completely abandoned attention to the Latin text in favour of the Scriptural (ie. Hebrew and Greek) text. That can be seen in the Entrance Antiphon. The Latin ends in “Deus Israel”, as does the new (and for that matter, the Old) English translation. But the Revised Grail of Psalm 130 (don’t forget to adjust the numbering) has:

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
LORD, who could stand?
But with you is found forgiveness,
that you may be revered.

The first Communion antiphon is another case in point, only in this case, it agrees with not only with the Latin of the Missal, but also with the Old ICEL antiphon, the Revised Grail, the Septuagint and the Vulgate – BUT NOT with the Hebrew or the original Grail – in giving “the rich” instead of “the young lions”. Just interesting something…

Another small aside, if you are still reading this far. Fr Peters complains that some verses of the Revised Grail appear to be “completely taken from NRSV. People: if you want NRSV use NRSV!” I’m not complaining. While I liked the singability of the Old Grail, I did miss my old familiarity with the KJV/RSV tradition that I grew up on (Douay Rheims folk can go and grumble in a corner for a bit). I don’t mind a return to this familiar vocabulary. A comparison of the alternate Communion Antiphon from 1 John 3:2 is interesting: it fits much more closely with the ESV than the RSV… Watch this space!

[UPDATE 17 Oct 2011: Readers of the CathNews “Blogwatch” will have seen Mr Michael Mullin’s claim that in this post I “come out in support of gay marriage, or at least accepting it as inevitable and tolerable”. For the record, he has completely misrepresented what I wrote in the following post. I await his public retraction and apology.]

I do not believe that “the sky will fall in” if Australia were to change the law to allow “marriage equality”. I do not believe that if we redefined marriage to include “same-sex partnerships”, that society as we know it would collapse.

I believe that the sky has already fallen in, and that “society as we know it” is already no longer “society as we knew it”.

The reason? Reason itself has been sacrificed upon the altar of human hybris and selfish libertinism. We have created a Mad-Hatter world in which “a word means what I mean it to mean, no more, no less”, and in which we employ “research” to convince ourselves that we can and should act in ways that are utterly opposed to plain common sense.

Exhibit A: Tonight’s episode of Encounter on ABC Radio National. There is a transcript (or you can listen to it if you are strong enough). Read it, and experience for yourself “the agonising pain of an almost unbearable anguish” that I felt as I listened to it. I must be going sane…

Source: Michael Leunig, The Saturday Age, October 8th 2011

There is rejoicing all across the Great Archdiocese of Melbourne in these days (or at least a good amount of curious interest) as the distribution of the new English translation of the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal is taking place. Thanks to a kind benefactor, I have received a copy of the study edition of the Missal.

This is not to be confused with the “Sunday Missal” for the people, which is still a couple of months away (so I am informed by my contacts) from being available for purchase. My copy is a precise minature of the missal that will be used on our altars. The “Sunday Missal” (and its companion, the “Daily Missal”) usually includes the lectionary texts as well, but the Missale Romanum does not incorporate the Lectionary. In any case, the Lectionary is still undergoing revision, and it appears that it will be some time before any concrete edition of that revision will appear. (Out of interest, the contest for the new translation seems to have come down to either the NRSV or the ESV (Oxford Edition with Deuterocanonicals). I greatly prefer the ESV, as I think that it corresponds better with the principles of Liturgiam Authenticam.)

The new missal is already in full use at St Patrick’s Cathedral, and it has been a joy to hear the new Eucharistic Prayer translations and the new translations of the collects. All in all, the process of introduction here in Melbourne seems to have been very successful, largely due to the gradual process of introduction that was been adopted. We are still six weeks away from the time when the new missal will be mandatory, and I know there are a few parishes around that haven’t introduced any of the new texts yet, but I think we can report “so far, so good”.

I have been particularly interested in what the missal does with the “proper chants”, the Entrance, the Offertory and the Communion Chant. (Added to this categoy could be the “chants” of the Gradual/Responsive Psalm and the Gospel Acclamation, but they belong to the lectionary, and so we don’t have those yet).

The Entrance and Communion antiphons are the same as in the old translation, but have, as expected, been retranslated from the Latin (nb. not from the Greek or Hebrew* – these chants are not always taken directly from scripture but belong to the Missal itself, and I believe that even in the Latin missal they do not always correspond exactly to the Vulgate). This will be of some concern to folk such as Adam Bartlett and the guys at Musica Sacra, since the new translation of the antiphons in the Missal does not correspond to the translation they have so painstakingly set to chant in their otherwise excellent resource Simple English Propers.

I am disappointed on two scores in this area:

1) It could have been possible for the Missal to include the actual psalm verses – or even a reference to which verses to use – and not just the antiphons of these chants. I never really expected that, but it would have opened up the use of these chants enormously.

2) I don’t completely understand why the Offertory Chant – or even its antiphon – is not included in the Missal. The rubrics refer to it, and GIRM speaks of it at paragraph 74.

The proper book for these chants is, of course, the Graduale Romanum (and various other editions such as the Graduale Simplex), which can be obtained separately, but the English editions (such as the Gregorian Missal) of course use the old translation.

So. Where do you find a resource that will give you all the processional chants in a translation according to the new Roman Missal WITH suggested psalm verses? Do not despair: such a resource DOES exist.

Compiled by the Society of Saint Gregory, and approved by the Department of Christian Life & Worship of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (and available for download here on the BCEW website) is “The Processional: Texts for Singing the Processional Songs of the Mass from the Church’s primary sources”. It doesn’t include any music, but it does include the texts. This is what they say in their introduction:

It is the Church’s tradition that the processions in the Mass – at the Entrance, Preparation of the Gifts and Communion – are accompanied by antiphons, almost always biblical texts, sung as refrains with psalm verses…

These antiphon and psalm texts have been brought together in English translation in this document. In addition, in the absence of psalm verses for the antiphons in the Missal, the verses proposed in the unpublished ICEL Antiphonal of 1997 have been added. The Offertory antiphon has been restored to its original responsorial form from ancient manuscripts edited by Karl Ott and published in Desclée in 1935 (re-issued by Solesmes in 1985). In the few instances where there were no available psalm verses, these have been added editorially.

For the translations, the new ICEL translation of the Missal is the basic resource. Where the Graduale Romanum differs from the Missal, and unless the same text occurs elsewhere in the Missal, a new translation from the Latin is provided – as is the case for all the Offertory songs. For the Graduale Simplex antiphons, the 1968 ICEL translation is used, unless a closer translation of the Latin has been preferred.

This is a most valuable and neccesary resource for the full implimentation of the Liturgy as envisaged by the Second Vatican Council. All we need now is some good work done by composers to set them to music. Gregorian settings would be lovely – and perhaps Mr Bartlett might like to consider a revision of his “Simple English Propers” to bring them into line with the New Missal (I did warn him that he was being pre-emptive by undertaking his project before the new texts were available). Other composers may like to have a go at something a little more “user-friendly”. Imagine if we had an explosion of compositions for these texts along the same lines as the huge number of compositions we currently have for the Responsorial Psalm!

* UPDATE: The minimal research I had done led me to expect that this was the case. However, it seems not: See here on Fr Bosco Peters’ blog. I have learned two things from his posts on the Revised Grail Psalter. The first is that the RGP is now available online here. The second is that it appears the Entrance and Communion antiphons in the new missal are NOT translations from the Latin text, but draw a lot from the text of the Revised Grail (which IS a translation of the Scriptural text rather than the Missal text). Now whether this is a good or bad thing… I don’t know. There has long been the problem that the antiphons to our responsive pslams in the lectionary differ from the actual text in the psalm itself – which can cause some confusion. Also note that while the US Bishops Conference has voted to adopt the Revised Grail Psalter, such a decision has not yet been made by our Bishops Conference here in Australia (as far as I know). As for Fr Peters recommendation of the Adler translation… I know something of Adler’s work – he is a first rate translator – but it is a Jewish translation, and therefore isn’t open at all times to our Christological interpretation of the psalms. Still, this is all a bit of a surprise.

They say there are two sides to every story. Rachel Kohn demonstrated that with reference to the Blake Prize, and now this story from Zenit throws new light on the “Our Fathers” survey by Chris McGillion and John O’Carroll.

When “Our Fathers” was released, the spin on the Catholic priesthood in Australia was largely negative and anti-Church (cf. this program on Sunday Nights and a transcript here on my own blog). The US Study in the Zenit story actually returns data similar to “Our Fathers” (eg. 90% satisfaction and happiness with their life and role) but puts an entirely different spin on the result. The author, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, says that:

There have been a number of studies in the United States over the last few years with exactly the same findings: About 90% of priests report that they are happy. In my study, it was 92.4%.

In a similar study, when the National Opinion Research Center recently conducted its scientific poll of 27,000 Americans, they found that clergy in general were the most satisfied and happiest of all Americans. This is especially remarkable since over 50% of Americans report being unhappy with their jobs. But this consistent and astounding finding of priestly happiness remains a secret.

Why? First of all, good news doesn’t make the news. Tragedies and scandals fill our front pages but the faces of our many happy priests do not. Second, and just as important, the secularization of our culture breeds a kind of negativism toward organized religion. There is a secular belief among some today that practicing the faith must be constraining and joyless.

Some modern thinkers suggest that the only way to true human happiness is to be freed from the constraints of religion. They see religion as repressive of one’s true human freedom and humanity. Thus, using this logic, being a priest must be the unhappiest life of all. Therefore, to hear that priests are among the happiest people in the country is met with disbelief.

On celibacy, an issue on which “Our Fathers” was particularly critical, Monsignor Rossetti says:

Those priests who felt called by God to live a celibate life and who experienced celibacy as a personal grace, despite its challenges, were much more likely to be happy men. The correlation between this positive view of celibacy and priestly happiness was a strong r=.47.

The good news here is that over 75% of priests have found celibacy to be a positive part of their lives. This percentage is likely to rise even higher in the future. It is the youngest priests who most strongly support mandatory celibacy.

So, contrary to a secular mentality, support for priestly celibacy will likely rise in the future among priests in the United States. It is disappearing as a “hot button” issue among priests in the United States. But this is challenging. It is one thing to accept celibacy as a necessary part of a priest’s life, but it requires a much deeper level of spirituality to experience celibacy as a gift from God and a personal grace. It requires a depth of living that is profound.

The trend towards a positive embrace of celibacy by younger priests is obviously challenging to Australian audiences, which is why McGillion and O’Carroll chose to focus on those dissatisfied with their celibate calling rather than the majority who are very comfortable with it.

And here Rossetti’s conclusion is spot on:

Interestingly enough, my research demonstrated that the most powerful predictor of inner peace is one’s relationship with God. The correlation was a large r=.55, which is a very strong correlation in social science research.

So, where does inner peace come from? When one has a solid relationship with God, there is much inner peace. Jesus promised us this gift. He said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

It was exciting for me to see the truths of the Gospels displayed right in front of my eyes in these statistical findings. We find true and lasting peace only in God. And, of course, one’s reported relationship with God was strongly predictive of happiness as well. Again, there was a strong correlation (r=.53).

So we see our spiritual life as being a powerful contributor both to inner peace and personal happiness. If there is so much violence and unhappiness in our world today, where does it come from? My findings suggest that we will never find the inner peace and joy that we are searching for until we find a personal relationship with God. Most of our priests have found such a relationship, and they are happy men because of it.

The solution, as the Pope repeatedly told the Germans on his recent visit, is not in structural but in inner change:

Behind the structures, is there also a corresponding spiritual strength, the strength of faith in a living God? We must honestly admit that we have more than enough by way of structure but not enough by way of Spirit. I would add: the real crisis facing the Church in the western world is a crisis of faith. If we do not find a way of genuinely renewing our faith, all structural reform will remain ineffective.”

My conclusion? If priests are unhappy as celibates, marriage is unlikely to make them any happier in their role as priests. The call to priesthood is a call to a profound relationship with Christ and his people, and it is that relationship which is the key to their “happiness” and “job satisfaction”, not any change to their domestic status.

Thanks to Marco, the Domestic Hermit, for this “doppelgänger” HT. You be the judge.

source

I am very happy to be able to welcome, via the blog at least, our regular commentator Matthias into the full communion of the Catholic Church. Matthias was received last night on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary before the 6:30pm mass at St Aloysius’ Church, during which he also received his first holy communion.

Unfortunately, due to a missed email which was intended to inform me of the change from the original date of Matthias’ reception from this morning to last night, I missed the event. I was honoured by Matthias and Fr Tattersall however by being recorded as a sponsor in absentia. I ask your prayers for my “godson” as he begins a new stage in his pilgrimage on the path of salvation.

…but I do know something about “religion”, and for some time, I have wondered about “The Blake Prize for Religious Art”. Now, at last, someone has dared to state the obvious: the Emperor has no clothes!, or, more to the point, “The Blake Prize” has no religion!

Rachel Kohn, ABC Radio’s The Spirit of Things has done a devastating expose of Australia’s most well known religious art exhibition/prize. She doesn’t set it up that way – oh no, she is far to clever for that. She has called this episode “Both Sides Now” – and indeed that is what she does: she allows “both sides” to have their say. How much more balanced can you get than that?

Well… The Rev. Dr Rob Patterson – described as “an artist, art historian, and educational facilitator” (and in his spare time a minister of the Uniting Church – a “trendy vicar” as McDonald calls him) is given what we would call “enough rope” to present the case “pro” The Blake, and then, after the rope has been tossed over a nearby tree-branch, John McDonald (art critic for the Sydney Morning Herald) is given the other end and a licence to pull with all his might.

The verdict? The bulk of the entries – and certainly the winners – in The Blake are either not “art” or, more devastatingly, do not contain any element that could authentically be described as “religious”. McDonald says that the judges would run a mile from anything that was truly “religious”, truly “devotional”, and prefer images of vague “spirituality” and avante garde iconoclasm. He wonders whether, in this secular day and age, it is even possible to have a truly “religious” art exhibition.

One interesting aspect McDonald and Kohn do pick up on is the fact that the winning piece is a video of a domestic sufi prayer ritual. Very reverent – “but not art” according to McDonald. Why such a reverent piece about Islam while only irreverent treatments of Christianity are allowed, ponders McDonald. Kohn puts this question to Patterson – who masterfully evades the question. (There is some evidence, I think, that Kohn actually interviewed McDonald first and then very cleverly worked McDonald’s critique into her questions to Patterson – although to give her credit, Kohn herself would have been very aware of the disparity between the way The Blake treats Islam and Christianity).

Originally, The Blake was designed to foster a truly Australian religious artistic expression and to produce works that could be placed within churches and synagogues and temples. No one in their right mind would include any of the entries in a true house of worship.

There isn’t a transcript for me to point you too, so you will just have to listen to it yourself to gain the full rhetorical impact of McDonald’s critique.

UPDATE: The transcript is now available at the link above. I will give just a few snippets:

Rachael Kohn: Is there something of a disconnect between the way the ironic and critical way in which Western traditions are represented and evaluated by comparison to the acceptance of this much more reverential expression of the Islamic faith?

Rod Pattenden: Certainly with the winning work you really are invited in to sit on the ground on a small Persian mat and to watch a three channel video of a Sufi ceremony. So it is very hospitable. …There are other works from a Western tradition that try to do the same thing. As a person who looks at a lot of art and looks at the way artists deal with religious subject matter, I realise for myself as a complex human being engaging between traditions, trying to put it all together, that I in fact do desperately need a sense of humour. I think irony is actually such a gift, it allows you to participate but also participate in a critical manner. I think if one is only pious you become very quickly like a fundamentalist, everything around you becomes just a sign of affirmation. I think to believe in this post-modern situation, in a complex world of competing demands, you really need a sense of humour. The only way to have sacred cows is to kick them.

And:

Rachael Kohn: Has the Blake Prize perhaps turned into its opposite? Is it actually fearful of explicitly devotional religious art?

John McDonald: I think the Blake Prize has an absolute, shall we say, unholy dread of devotional art. I think if somebody were to put in a series of works that were genuinely religious or genuinely seemed to profess some kind of religious faith that the judges each year would run a mile. I’d say just give the whole thing a revamp. It’s in a terrible double-bind, because in order to be a fashionable, of-the-moment, cutting-edge art prize, it has to more or less dispense with all of the things that it was originally intended to do, which is to look at the role of religion in life and to actually celebrate religion, to make people think seriously about religion by bringing it to an art exhibition.