Sentire Cum Ecclesia

I think it is quite possible that one day someone will write a history of Catholic theology in the sixty or so years following Vatican II, taking as their narrative guide the life and work of two contemporary German theologians, Hans Küng and Joseph Ratzinger.

Until then, we content ourselves with snippets such as this from Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute.

A little more sympathetic to Küng, but no less aware of his stark contrast to the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI, is an article in the inestimable “Ecumenical Trends”. Unfortunately they don’t publish online yet. There is only a “sample issue” available from January of this year on their website – which nevertheless has an interesting article on John Henry Newman by the Hong Kong Dominican Ambrose Mong Ih-Ren.

The March issue for 2011 had an article entitled “Hans Küng’s Humanum and the Quest for the True Religion”, by the same author. He introduces his paper by saying:

This paper attempts to critique Hans Küng’s humanum as a criterion for determining the truth and goodness of a religion. In addition, the thought of Joseph Ratzinger, who understands Christianity as the true religion, is presented to shed light on their different approaches.

Indeed! He summarises Küng’s approach as follows:

Küng asks this question, “Is there one true religion?” From the outside (ie., objectively) there are many true religions; from the inside (subjectively) there is only one. Christains over the centuries have fallen into untrue religion. Prophets have had to arise in the Church and “enlightened ones” outside the Church to call the faithful back to this truth, “among whom the prophet Muhammad and the Buddha should no doubt be included par excellence.” [Hans Küng, Theology for the Third Millenium, p251] Küng says a genuine religion must have an orientation to the human element, but that does not mean that it must be reduced to the “merely human”. Religion is convincing when it succeeds in bringing out the “human element against the background of the Absolute”. [ibid, p241]

And now for something completely different:

Following the teaching of St Augustine, Ratzinger states that Christianity is not based on myths or justified by political exigency but is related to that divine presence that can be percieved by reason. Christianity is religio vera in the sense that it is not based on poetry and politics like the pagan religions, but on knowledge. For Küng, as we have seen, it is the human element that is the decisive factor concerning truth of religion. Ratzinger argues that Christianity is the worship of the “true God”, and enlightenment is part of this religion; it embodies “the victory of demythologisation, the victory of knowledge…and the victory of truth.” [Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, p170]. It appears to be intolerant because it refuses to accept relativism and the interchangeability of gods or to be used for politcal purposes. But for Ratzinger, Christianity is not just one religion among others, but it represents the victory of perception and truth.

Fr Ambrose barely scratches the surface on a deep mine of material for comparison and understanding in the life and work of Hans Küng and Joseph Ratzinger respectively. At some time in the future, both men will have passed on from us. Perhaps then will be the time for the definitive study: “Küng and Ratzinger: A tale of two theologians”. But we can start sketching the chapters even now!

I just want to make a few observations on the debate currently surrounding “Religious Education” in Victorian state schools. My point is largely about the importance of making distinctions (so important in any debate about anything).

At the end of last month, an article appeared in The Age entitled “Backlash as God forced into schools”. At the time, I thought “That’s funny, actually. I didn’t think you could ‘force’ God to be anywhere he didn’t want to be.” Someone else wisely added “And isn’t God everywhere anyway?”

Be that as it may, extra fuel was thrown on the debate by this article in The Age this week: “Academics call for review of school religious teaching”. I know and have worked with all the people who are named in the article. I attended a consultation on the issue last year at Monash run by the folk named in the article, and heard all their arguments.

Essentially, we are talking about two different things. On the one hand, there is “Religious Education” and on the other there is “Education in Religion”. The first refers to education in a specific religious tradition, the second refers to education in religion as a social phenomenon.

I believe that the latter has value even in a secular education system, as it is really education about an important aspect of our multicultural society. I do not believe it is wise or profitable to play “Education in Religion” (or “Religious Studies”, if you prefer) off against catechisation in one’s own chosen religion. Because I also believe that in a society which upholds freedom of religion – that is, which recognises the important role in which a freely chosen religion plays in the life of its adherants, their families and their community – no student should be hindered from learning about their own spiritual tradition. It is a part of a wholistic education.

The fact that we have “Religious Education” in our state schools has an historical explanation, which there is no need to go into here. I do want to protest, however, against the point of view expressed in the letter signed by Gary Bouma, Anna Halafoff, Cathy Byrne and Marion Maddox that “the current model (volunteers teaching about Christianity) is exclusivist and at odds with government aims to promote social inclusion.”

For a start, the current model is not “exclusivist”. As Anna Halohoff admits even within the same article, “minority religions do offer education, and Victoria had Baha’i, Jewish and Greek Orthodox programs”. It is true that the current system relies on volunteers (which is not a bad thing at all – classroom teachers cannot be expected to have the necessary knowledge or training for such a task). It also depends upon parental request for such classes to be offered in any given school. This might mean that smaller religious communities struggle to find suitable teachers or very many opportunities in which to offer their classes, but the system as such is not to blame for this. Any religious group, who provides volunteer teachers and who have support from the parents who belong to that religious group, is free to offer this kind of “religious education”.

Anna’s complaint that in these lessons “children still got only one perspective” is as it should be in “Religious Education”. There is nothing wrong with this as such – in fact it is a positive thing, as it respects the religious identity of the individual student. Providing education in a specific religion for a specific religious group is as valid as providing particular cultural or linguistic education for a particular cultural or linguistic group. If the Education Department wished to include a subject which provided “Education in Religion” then that would be a positive adjunct to “Religious Education”, not a replacement for it.

I don’t believe it is helpful to play these two off against each other. It is a “good thing” that we have, by historical circumstance, the legal right to provide “Religious Education” to students of a particular religion who do not have the opportunity of attending independant schools specifically run by those religions. It would also be a good thing if “Education in Religion” was included along with “Education in Culture”.

There it is. That’s all I wanted to say about the matter.

I have been teaching down at the Chelsea Parish on the topic of “The Last Things” (last session next Wednesday at 7:30pm). So I was very interested recently when, at my family’s Lutheran “Small Group” meeting, we viewed a video of a talk given by an old seminary colleague of mine, Pastor Dirk Willner.

Some of the story related in that talk has been posted here on the internet. There’s more to it, but if you read that, you will get the gist of it.

The story concerns a “near death experience” that Dirk had in 2004. Dirk himself prefers to see it as a real experience of death, on the basis that he was “clinically dead” for a period of 2 minutes.

I have thought long and hard about Dirk’s story and his experience. Here are some conclusions. Please note that in posting these comments, I am not for a moment doubting Dirk’s own account of what he experienced. I am just trying to work out what it means!

1) You’re not dead until you’re dead.

What Dirk had was a “near death experience”, not “an experience of death”. You could say he had an experience of dying, but without that process reaching it’s conclusion. If you look at the three miracles of Jesus that involved raising the dead, one was soon after death (Jairus’ daughter), one was within 24 hours of death (the widow of Nain’s son – who was about to be buried), and one was four days after death (Lazarus – “There will be a stink”, as Martha said). Doctors can revive people who are “clinically dead” only because they are not yet, strictly speaking, dead. When you’re dead there is no coming back without a supernatural intervention. Medicine alone can’t do it. So whatever happened to Dirk, he didn’t actually die. That day is still to come.

2) Continuation of Consciousness

One thing that his experience does make clear is that the state known as “clinical death” does not result in a cessation of consciousness. That should make us stop and think about organ transplants. At least a little bit.

3) A Dream-like experience

The story Dirk tells is curiously “dream-like”. It sounds like someone telling you about their dream. Like dreams, they include a lot of images that are tucked away in our brains. So we see a mansion, a big door, a man with a cup of wine etc. We don’t see the Virgin Mary. Why not? Dirk is a Protestant. If he had described seeing Mary, I would have sat up and paid attention. This is in line with a question another Lutheran pastor friend of mine likes to ask Catholics “Why don’t Lutherans ever get visions of the Virgin?”

4) A trauma experience?

If it was a “dream” rather than a real experience, to what extent can we rule out the possibility that this experience (and other reported NDE’s) was brought about by the extreme trauma his body and brain were experiencing? In other words, is there a completely naturalistic explanation to his experience rather than a spiritual explanation?

5) A private revelation?

If you don’t like the naturalistic explanation – and you have to understand that I am both a sceptic and a cynic at heart – there is a supernatural explanation which stops short of saying that what Dirk experienced is informative and normative for the rest of us: it was a private revelation. This goes for some of the experiences he had after his NDE (not related in the online version of the story) in which he had visions of angels and auditions of God speaking to him. Of course, the latter might also admit of a naturalistic explanation (post-trauma, medication etc). But if you want to be charitable, we can accept that all these experiences were given to Dirk by God for his own strengthening and edification and his alone, with no relevance or authority for the rest of us.

6) No experience of Judgement

I always find it strange that accounts of NDE’s almost never seem to include any element of experience of “judgement”. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1021-22) says that “the New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith.” Known as the “particular judgement”, both Protestants and Catholics accept this doctrine. That “immediately after death” part of the Church’s teaching seems to me to prove that NDE’s are not experiences of “death” as such, for if they were, then there would have been the “immediate” experience of judgement. Of course, the formulators of the Catechism etc. have never “died”. They make this statement purely on the basis of the teaching of the Scriptures. So, what conclusion do you draw?

7) No encounter with Christ

And this brings me to my strongest reason for doubting that Dirk’s experience (or any NDE for that matter) is either a real experience of true death or an experience that is in any way informative or normative for the rest of us: the complete absence of any encounter with Christ in his account of his experience. The “particular judgement” is, in fact, nothing else than the immediate post-death encounter with Christ, in whom all our life is “judged”. As Ratzinger reflects in his book “Eschatology”:

“One is in heaven when, and to the degree, that one is in Christ. It is by being with Christ that we find the true location of our existence as human beings in God. Heaven is thus primarily a personal reality, and one that remains forever shaped by its historical origin in the paschal mystery of death and resurrection.”

Some who have heard Dirk’s account have speculated that maybe the man with the cup of wine was Christ, but that seems far to metaphorical and ambiguous for what we have been taught (at least according to the teaching of Scripture and the Church) to expect.

I am, as I said, a complete sceptic and cynic when it comes to things like this. I wouldn’t even accept the private revelations of Lourdes or Fatima were it not for the Church’s approval of these as authentic visions. All that aside, I remain convinced that our experience in death will be fundamentally related to Christ, that is both Christological and Christocentric. The only reason I believe in the resurrection of the dead at all is because I believe the apostolic testimony that Jesus himself rose bodily from the grave. Therefore, I have deep questions about an account of “death” in which Christ does not figure at all in an obvious way.

Of course, as I said before, i don’t doubt Dirk’s experience or the experience of other NDEs. But I do have questions about exactly what these were experiences of, and about what these experiences mean for the rest of us, if anything at all.

One of the things that people often say to me when they learn that my motto is “Sentire cum Ecclesia” is: Why do you need someone to tell you what to think? Why can’t you think for yourself?

The simple answer is that I am in fact quite capable of thinking for myself, but it’s nice to have the help of a two-thousand year old tradition so that I don’t have to start from scratch with every issue that arises.

But there is also the fact that a lot of what passes for “free thinking” is in fact practiced by what a friend of mine calls “deep thinkers in the shallow end of the pool”. “Thinking with the Church” means diving in the deep end, entrusting oneself to the baptismal waters of the Church, so to speak. There is a lot of room to move at that end of the pool, and I haven’t yet dived so deep as to touch the bottom!

In that line, I was glad to find this entry on the First Things blog by Elizabeth Scalia (aka The Anchoress): “Bone Setting the Faith needs the Wrap of Reason”. I read it soon after having a conversation with a work-colleague who is experiencing difficulty accepting the Church’s teaching that ordination can only be validly conferred upon a baptised adult male (it’s the “male” part my colleague has difficulties with).

Someone had written to Elizabeth saying:

“I know the Church puts a high premium on docility, humility and the emptying of self,” he wrote, “but common sense tells me that none of those should involve self-lobotomizing. Please tell me I’m not wrong.”

That word “docile/docility” comes from Pope Benedict, who uses it quite a bit to describe what our attitude should be toward the Church’s teaching. It’s a word that most today hear in a negative sense, but he holds it up as a virtue. Why? Elizabeth explains that it isn’t about getting people to “fall in line” with Christ, but inviting people to “fall in love” with him and his Church. For many of us there will be doctrines of the Church that are not self-evident. We have to research, read, reason and pray about the Church’s teachings. Her experience, like mine, is that when she has taken the time to do this, she has

“always come down on the side of Catholic orthodoxy; never because she has simply dished it out and I’ve eaten it, but because she has made a sound argument that fed me in my totality: mind, spirit, and sinew.”

She writes:

Look at our saints and you see that the Church’s true exemplars—the apostles, the doctors of the Church—were men and women who were rarely in “perfect conformity” to their times or trends, inside church or outside. They were innovators and reformers, but not unbounded; they were neither like the “Spirit of Vatican II” Catholics—busily decrying everything that came before them as outmoded and unattuned to the times—nor like the staunch traditionalists who seem to believe that perfect fidelity to the past breeds a perfect future. Instead they took everything that came before, and built on it—added to the whole structure of faith, while tidying up what was corroded or decorative without meaning…

Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Elizabeth Ann Seton and Dorothy Day all called themselves “obedient daughters” of the church. All were intelligent women with a wide and sophisticated view of the world, all were innovators but not unrestricted in scope, who worked within the bounds of the church, whose Christ-led wisdom they had allowed to become bone-set within them. Although they were very different women, of different temperaments and abilities, living in different eras, each one of them would give you the same answers on the big issues of faith, life, sacraments, and redemption.

And considered together, they are perhaps the best argument I could possibly make against any notion that being Catholic means conforming oneself to a narrow path of non-thinking.

Here, here!

I have been waiting for this:

Monday, April 4, 2011
DAY OF REFLECTION, DIALOGUE AND PRAYER IN ASSISI
VATICAN CITY, 2 APR 2011 (VIS) – The Holy See Press Office today published the following English-language communique:

“On 1 January 2011, after the Angelus, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he wished to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the historic meeting that took place in Assisi on 27 October 1986, at the wish of the Venerable Servant of God John Paul II. On the day of the anniversary, 27 October this year, the Holy Father intends to hold a ‘Day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace and justice in the world’, making a pilgrimage to the home of St. Francis and inviting fellow Christians from different denominations, representatives of the world’s religious traditions and, in some sense, all men and women of good will, to join him once again on this journey.

“The Day will take as its theme: ‘Pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace’. Every human being is ultimately a pilgrim in search of truth and goodness. Believers too are constantly journeying towards God: hence the possibility, indeed the necessity, of speaking and entering into dialogue with everyone, believers and unbelievers alike, without sacrificing one’s own identity or indulging in forms of syncretism. To the extent that the pilgrimage of truth is authentically lived, it opens the path to dialogue with the other, it excludes no-one and it commits everyone to be a builder of fraternity and peace. These are the elements that the Holy Father wishes to place at the centre of reflection.

“For this reason, as well as representatives of Christian communities and of the principal religious traditions, some figures from the world of culture and science will be invited to share the journey – people who, while not professing to be religious, regard themselves as seekers of the truth and are conscious of a shared responsibility for the cause of justice and peace in this world of ours”.

The communique affirms that “the delegations will set off from Rome by train on the morning of 27 October, together with the Holy Father. Upon arrival in Assisi, they will make their way to the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, where the previous meetings will be recalled and the theme of the Day will be explored in greater depth. Leaders of some of the delegations present will make speeches and the Holy Father will likewise deliver an address”.

There will then be a simple lunch, followed by a moment of silence for individual reflection and prayer. Later, all those present in Assisi will make a “pilgrimage” to the Basilica of Saint Francis, “in silence, leaving room for personal meditation and prayer”. The final part of the Day will include “a solemn renewal of the joint commitment to peace”.

“In preparation for this Day, Pope Benedict XVI will preside over a prayer vigil at St. Peter’s the previous evening, together with the faithful of the diocese of Rome. Particular Churches and communities throughout the world are invited to organise similar times of prayer”.

The communique concludes by highlighting that “the Pope asks the Catholic faithful to join him in praying for the celebration of this important event and he is grateful to all those who will be able to be present in St. Francis’ home town to share this spiritual pilgrimage”.
OP/ VIS 20110404 (560)
Published by VIS – Holy See Press Office – Monday, April 04, 2011

Just last night, at the last session of our Anima Education “Christian Traditions” course, we were looking at a Vatican TV production of the history of ecumenical engagement (“Ut Unum Sint”). It had quite a bit of footage of both the 1986 and 2000 meetings in Assisi. I told the class that it would be interesting to see how Pope Benedict would arrange the upcoming meeting in October, given his criticism of the John Paul II events.

I think it most notable that in the BXVI format of the pilgrimage, we have:

1) “figures from the world of culture and science” included – this places the emphasis of the meeting on cultural expression rather than religious truth – particularly notable given that at the beginning of his pontificate, the Holy Father temporarily combined the role of the President for the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the President for the Pontifical Council for Culture.

2) “the previous meetings will be recalled and the theme of the Day will be explored in greater depth”: this indicates that the upfront-vocal-guest-star-speaker focus (to give it a broad description) will be in a dialogue session rather than in the actual prayers offered by of the various participants

3) The prayer aspect of the pilgrimage is described in two places as “a moment of silence for individual reflection and prayer” and, in the Basilica of Saint Francis, a “silence, leaving room for personal meditation and prayer”. In otherwords, no one will be offering any ceremony or rite from their religious tradition. All will be together in silence.

For an example of the latter model of interfaith prayer, one could recall the moment of silence Pope Benedict spent side by side with the Grand Mufti of Turkey in the Blue Mosque on his visit to Constantinople. Silent prayer, as a valid way of “praying together”, is in fact suggested by the Archdiocese of Melbourne’s “Promoting Interfaith Relations” guidelines.

The suggestion that there be a vigil at St Peter’s the previous day to prepare for the meeting is also, I think, significant. This in fact might provide a model for the other religious groups as well. Each should gather in their own place with their own people on the night before to offer prayers in their own way, before travelling together to the place of pilgrimage in the morning to offer silent prayer in the way that one is able.

I think this is a model that could be recreated in various places in conjunction with the October 27 event in Assisi. It is significantly different from the previous Assisi engagements.

Just a little prayer I commend to you:

Lord Jesus Christ, Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, we humbly beseech You that all the sheep of your fold may, by the power of the Holy Spirit they have received in the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, be truly converted to You, and that they may always work for the good of your Flock and for the gathering in of every lost sheep; who live and reign with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end.
Amen.

I wish I was more talented as a musician than I actually am.

The issue of the settings for the new mass came up at our parish this morning. The head of the music group announced that the parish was seeking a setting which would “suit the specific needs of our community”. Afterward I asked her if she was aware of the standard chants that actually being printed in our new missals (all the chants and recordings can be accessed here; Dr Geoffrey Cox has written an organ accompaniment that has yet to be published). She wasn’t.

The fact is that these chants are being provided as the universal “setting” for the new translation of the mass. They aren’t designed to fit “the specific needs” of one given community, but of the whole English speaking Church. More than that, they are based on the actual chants for the Latin mass in the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal in Latin. In that sense, they are truly universal.

What concerns me is that a lot of parishes simply won’t bother to learn them and to make them the standard “setting of the mass” in their “community”. I have nothing against using other settings, I just think that it would be to the immense benefit of the whole Church if, as a whole, we had a way of singing the mass which was truly universal.

Many will find the chant setting “boring”. That has been said pariticularly of the chant for the Gloria in Excelsis. And yet it is a very easy chant to learn, and, I think, quite beautiful in its simplicity (that should please some readers!).

Here’s where I would like to make an appeal to the musicians out there – and to offer a challenge. Dr Cox’s accompaniment to the chant will, I think, become a standard, and that’s as it should be. But for variety, how about a few extra, more imaginative musical accompaniments to the chants that involve different kinds of settings and different kinds of instruments? I am thinking here of the many successful editions of various Gregorian chants you can get on CD’s these days that include very modern, even jazzy, musical backgrounds? I think this could be done. The people don’t have to learn new melody lines, but the musical accompaniment would provide the variety that they are looking for.

What do you think? If I were a proper musician, I would have a go at it myself. Any ideas from any readers who are musicians?

I have been terribly busy of late, and so had slotted this issue into the “to blog” tray and not got around to writing anything till now (between Lutheran Small Group, getting the kid’s dinner, and picking my wife up from the airport – bring back Sabbath Observance, I say!).

Last week, John Allan ran this piece – U.S. bishops blast book by feminist theologian – on the USCCB Doctrinal Committee’s condemnation of aspects of Sr Elizabeth Johnson’s book Quest for the Living God. I had never heard of the book before, and won’t pretend to have read it or to offer an opinion on it. Fr Zuhlsdorf has a comment, and he also posts Sr Elizabeth’s response.

So, I won’t discuss the book itself, but I was interested especially in this comment by the bishops committee:

While God is a mystery that cannot be fully comprehended and thus fully articulated, nonetheless, according to the Catholic theological tradition it is possible to make statements about God that are true even if they do not express the fullness of the mystery. That tradition acknowledges that there is a difference between God’s being incomprehensible and God’s being unknowable. To say that God is not comprehensible is to say that he cannot be completely known and understood. On the other hand, God is knowable in the sense that human concepts do reflect some real if limited knowledge of God. For Sr. Johnson, if God is incomphensible he is unknowable. This is incorrect.

In effect, this is about the use of the “apophatic” method, or the via negativa in Catholic theology. Karl Rahner was the theologian in the 20th Century who popularised this method. Over against this method is its opposite, the “cataphatic” method, which was to be found more in the writings, for eg., of Hans Urs von Balthasar. While the apophatic method has commended itself especially to post-modern and liberal theology, it really has its place in the mystical and monastic tradition rather than (historically, anyway) Catholic dogmatic theology.

At essence is the question of whether or not God has really revealed himself and whether or not what God has revealed of himself can be said to be postively “known” as true. I am no fan of apophatic theology, although I acknowledge its place in the Catholic tradition. The fact is that this method is practically useless for any kind of kerygmatic, didactic, or catechetical expression of the faith. The consequence of that is that it is useless for the purposes of evangelisation. I see the adoption of a apophatic stance as one of the key sources of dissent from defined Catholic doctrine in the academy today.

From it flows a number of other issues that the USCCB committee picked up about Sr Johnson’s book, including treating the language of scripture and revelation about God as largely “metaphorical”, denying the uniqueness of the revelation of God in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and the idea that we are free to find other “ways of speaking” about God that are more to our social or political liking.

The apophatic method may commend itself to a person in their spiritual life as a particularly “humble” way of approaching God, but if it results in the actual denial of God’s acts of revelation, then it is actually a manifestation of a kind of perverse “pride”.

The apophatic method has a venerable history – especially among the monastic Fathers. But the method of theology most suited to calling a world that truly knows nothing positive about God at all, and moreover does not believe that anything positive about God CAN be known, needs the cataphatic approach up front.

After all, did not our Lord say (Jn 17:3):

3 And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

…here’s one prayer in the “new mass” that fails dismally:

O God, who in each pilgrim Church throughout the world
make visible the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,
graciously grant
that your faithful may be so united to their shepherd
and gathered together in the Holy Spirit
through the Gospel and the Eucharist,
as to worthily embody the universality of your people
and become a sign and instrument in the world of the presence of Christ.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

And ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, as Mr Handel would have sung.

A friend of mine aptly described this prayer as “Gaudium et Spes with ‘O God’ put in front of it”. It is clearly not an “ancient” collect, but an invention of the post-Council consilium that gave us the whole Novus Ordo. It has none of the brevity and poetry of the classical collects, and seems designed more as a short course in ecclesiology than a prayer of petition to God. There is no way that any amount of accurate translation could make a beautiful prayer out this text.

I’m not dissing the new translation in this, btw. It’s not the translation’s fault that this is such an unwieldy prayer. Fortunately, one would not expect it to be used very often, as it comes from one of the “Masses and Prayers for Various Needs and Occasions” in the back of the missal, and is designated “For the Particular Church”. I cannot find the current translation of the prayer in my current missal or the original.

Speaking of Mr Handel, I wonder if the prayer might not be improved perhaps if it were to be given a choral setting akin to some part of “The Messiah”? Any suggestions?

I’ve just noticed that Peter is blogging again, and have added his blog to my blogroll.