Rhabanus
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September 7, 2008 at 3:24 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771928RhabanusParticipant
@Praxiteles wrote:
Neo Byzantine Revival in the United States
The Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Washington DC
The apse mosaic.
A pity that the basilica went with this depiction of Christ. The inspiration seems to have been an Olympian deity, indeed Iupiter tonans himself. The alternate figure, ultimately discarded but preserved in model form, depicts Christ not as an angry Greek god, but as a priest fully clad in sacerdotal vesture: the Mediator between God and man making intercession with the Father on our behalf. The Epistle to the Hebrews seems to have influenced the alternative without detracting from the apocalyptic theme. The priestly figure would have been more immediately related to the liturgy.
It is worthy of note that whereas various orders and congregations in the Church have their own chapels to display their most illustrious saints, an interesting group of statues finds shelter under the apocalyptic Christ in Judgement. These include St John Marie Vianney (Cure d’Ars), St Benedict Joseph Labre (the beggar saint), St Joan of Arc, St Zita the little cook, St Juliana Falconieri – for the most part those who were marginalised and had no great order to advance their causes. They stand secure beneath the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, relying on His justice and mercy to right the wrongs they suffered in this life.
The interior of the basilica is a melange of various styles with many side chapels of different styles from all eras. It is amazingly well kept. One can eat off the floors. Everything is kept in tip-top condition. The HACK ought to make a pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and see how effectively clean churches attract generous support. Of course it helps to have some faith at bottom.
September 6, 2008 at 1:56 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771924RhabanusParticipant@ake wrote:
I wonder will they ever finish it
I understand that the project has been officially abandoned, and that a few decades ago some of the mosaics in waiting were actually sold or auctioned off. Anyone have more recent information on the mosaics at Westminster Cathedral?
September 4, 2008 at 3:11 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771909RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
The Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Blessed Trinity at Aquinas College, California
Here is a rather interesting exercise in church building by Duncan Stroik:
http://www.stroik.com/portfolio/holytrinity.php
Praxiteles understands that Duncan Stroik will be in Ireland to deliver a lecture on ecclesiastical architecture in the coming months. That should avail anyone interested in more than cow-sheds an opportunity to talk to someone who has the experience of building this type of church.
Duncan Stroik recently built a magnificent shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Diocese of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The shrine was commissioned by Archbishop Raymond Burke when he was the bishop of LaCrosse. Since then, Archbishop Burke has served as the ordinary of the archdiocese of St Louis, Missouri, USA. Pope Benedict XVI has just appointed him head of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome.
Duncan Stroik is a key member of the School of Architecture at Notre Dame, Indiana. His churches are built to render glory to God and to elevate the minds and hearts of the faithful to ‘things above.’ Striking beauty, impeccable taste, graciousness, and joy are hallmarks of the Stroik studio. Time for the tired crowd of dowdy hippies, yippies, and yahoos to take a leaf from the Stroik tome! Give some relief to the exhausted faithful who have to pay for the IBM-computer-waiting-room chapels and the sterile dogboxes that pass for churches as the architects snicker all the way to the bank.
August 29, 2008 at 1:48 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771892RhabanusParticipant@samuel j wrote:
A film called ‘The Eclipse” is about to begin shooting in Cobh, written/directed by Conor McPherson…. Cobh, Fota and in particular St Colmans will be featured… hope someone puts a drop of varnish and hammerite on the doors before then
Is this a film about the HACK, as the title suggests? Could be a real melodrama! Or is it a horror film? Perhaps an Irish western along the lines of High Noon ….
Rhabanus hopes that the FOSCC will make at least a cameo appearance. He knows who will be wearing the white hats and who will sport the black hats in this movie!
Some film companies pay to have the site cleaned up when they film in a given building. This may be what the cathedral authorities have been waiting for … How’s that for a deus ex machina? Deus ex RTE?
August 28, 2008 at 7:00 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771890RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
St. Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork
Some shots of the strapwork on the main doors which is modelled on that of the south door of Notre Dame de Paris.
It looks about as old as Notre Dame de Paris, too! Time for some close application of varnish and cleansers.
By the bye, has anyone seen the recently released remake of Brideshead Revisited? Lovers of architecture doubtless would be impressed with a few shots of Castle Howard as well as Oxford and Venice. The Grenada television series, however, showed all of these to better advantage. Too bad the new film got everything else wrong, particularly the screenplay. In fact, the film could be retitled Hooper’s Brideshead Revisited: The Ultimate Revenge, then relegated to oblivion.
Rhabanus is still awaiting a dramatic presentation (television or motion picture) on the life and work of AWN Pugin.
August 25, 2008 at 9:17 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771883RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
Having read Christine Casey’s comments on Cahill’s Celtic Cross outside the main door of St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, in the recently published Studies in the Gothic Revival, Four Courts Press, edited by Micahel McCarthy and Karina O’Neill, Praxiteles has begun to collect pictures of celtic revival Crosses. Praxiteles came across these two beauties in a remote country church yard last week:
Exquisite work! The marble is so pure and fair, particularly in the case of the cross bearing the corpus.
Great photos, Prax! Many thanks!
August 21, 2008 at 4:10 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771860RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
St. Seurin, Bordeaux
The shrine of Notre Dame de Joie
Magnificent pics of Bordeaux! Amazing what items of the Middle Ages survived the French Revolution.
The cult of St Martial (Martialis) of Limoges is worthy of note. Medieval legend identified him as one of seven bishops sent by St Peter from Rome as missionaries into Gaul. (This band included St Denis [Dionysius] who was sent to Paris where he was beheaded, yet rose to carry his head to the place of entombment.) According to the legend, St Peter gave his favourite disciple, Martial, his personal crozier; hence the bishops of Rome do not use the crozier – except of course when they visit Limoges, in which circumstance they use that of their illustrious predecessor!
August 16, 2008 at 10:11 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771828RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
No reaction fron Cork County Council?
The sap must trickle rather slowly in that neck of the woods!
August 13, 2008 at 4:02 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771824RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
And just in case Cork County Council is thinking that someone in Kanturk has come to a realization of the artistic quality, merits and value of the sancttuary gates and has simply secreated them in a nearby bank vault, they may wish to take a look at the following images which clearly show the ubication of the gates at present and the amount of “chesrihing” their artistic and heritage quality merits.
Shame on the Al-wahabi for his sacrilegious treatment of the communion gates. The garbage pail over the cross on the gate is abominable!
Fie upon the CCC as well for allowing this atrocity to continue.
Stop the sharade.
This reflects quite tellingly the level of faith and competence of the clergy in the region. Does the toffynosed Al-Wahabi still occupy the cabana?
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY DYSFUNCTIONAL !
August 13, 2008 at 3:51 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771823RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
Sub-prime expertise!!
Add at least another qualification: Sub-subprime …just think of the ecclesiastical “expertise” deployed on the project to devastate Cobh Cathedral.
Let us simply call it SUBSTANDARD and be done with it. To suggest that the alleged “liturgical” expertise was dismal is not far off the mark.
A complete waste of time and resources regardless how one cuts it.
SUBSTANDARD!
August 5, 2008 at 8:58 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771790RhabanusParticipant@Rhabanus wrote:
Right on the money, sam j! How those in positions of responsibility can justify, either to themselves or to the donors, the diverting of monies for the restoration of a cathedral to “professional advisers fees etc.” – not to mention exorbitant legal costs – escapes old Rhabanus. Doesn’t canon law protect and uphold “the intention of the donors”? Or have the Irish authorities claimed some kind of medieval exemption to that universal rule? Haven’t heard that Pope Benedict XVI has been distributing indults for that one!
On a more serious note, though, the new generation coming up in Cobh and Cork is quite promising. They are the real treasure of the Church. Thoughtful, articulate, and courageous! A number of them were homeschooled and others of them are reading themselves back into the Catholic Faith. They seem to have drive and determination. And it takes both grit and stamina to withstand the frustrating ordeal of glacial intransigence. But even the Arctic is beginning to break up!
By the way, sam, did you make it to the Fota Island International Conference on Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy? Did you hear the Lassus Singers chant Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli in St Colman’s Cathedral? Apparently clergy and faithful from all over Ireland came to participate in the events. Dubliners and Corkonians distinguished themselves according to sources on the blogosphere!
Did any of this thread’s readers make it to the Fota International Conference on Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy? Location, as they say, is everything. Few venues in the region of Cork could have eclipsed the Fota Island Sheraton for contemporary elegance and state-of-the-art facilities. Way to go!
July 31, 2008 at 12:35 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771789RhabanusParticipant@samuel j wrote:
In the case of Cobh, I think there was and is a huge interest, which was backed up by the numerous donations made to the so called ‘Restoration’ but I believe the fault squarely lies with those who spent these funds and still control whatever minute portion is leftover, post the various professional advisers fees etc…:mad:
I would share your feeling that a new generation will and even are discovering the Treasure of St.Colman’s
but the clock is ticking and still no work being done….. are we to approach another Cork Harbour winter with still nothing done…:confused:Right on the money, sam j! How those in positions of responsibility can justify, either to themselves or to the donors, the diverting of monies for the restoration of a cathedral to “professional advisers fees etc.” – not to mention exorbitant legal costs – escapes old Rhabanus. Doesn’t canon law protect and uphold “the intention of the donors”? Or have the Irish authorities claimed some kind of medieval exemption to that universal rule? Haven’t heard that Pope Benedict XVI has been distributing indults for that one!
On a more serious note, though, the new generation coming up in Cobh and Cork is quite promising. They are the real treasure of the Church. Thoughtful, articulate, and courageous! A number of them were homeschooled and others of them are reading themselves back into the Catholic Faith. They seem to have drive and determination. And it takes both grit and stamina to withstand the frustrating ordeal of glacial intransigence. But even the Arctic is beginning to break up!
By the way, sam, did you make it to the Fota Island International Conference on Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgy? Did you hear the Lassus Singers chant Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli in St Colman’s Cathedral? Apparently clergy and faithful from all over Ireland came to participate in the events. Dubliners and Corkonians distinguished themselves according to sources on the blogosphere!
July 30, 2008 at 5:06 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771787RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
All Saints Barton on Irwell
Part of the surviving original fresco work on the south side
Very sad, indeed. What an indictment of a generation! Particularly when one takes into account the limited financial resources enjoyed by Catholics when Pugin first designed and executed the project. Clearly the Celtic Tiger has no interest in the Catholic Faith or even in the cultural patrimony of a people.
A new generation will discover the buried treasure. Let’s hope some of it will last until then.
July 25, 2008 at 3:53 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771780RhabanusParticipantHas anyone been through St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, with a feather duster, lately? The stately old church is long overdue for a good dusting and thorough cleaning (apart from the structural problems). The figures on the transepts are blackened with soot and dust. The saints and prophets are croaking out, “Dust me! Dust me! Someone, please, dust me!”
Do the dean and chapter of the cathedral take no pride in their ecclesiastical patrimony? Some of those canonical rochets, by the bye, look a trifle moth-eaten, too.
Little evidence of clerical exertion Cobh-way. That cathedral sure needs a lift.
July 24, 2008 at 1:27 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771779RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
On a different subject, can anyone suggest a list a neo byzantine churches in Ireland?
How about St Francis Church in Cork City? According to the literature available at the foyer of the church, St Francis
“was designed in Byzantine style by Jones nd Kelly of Dublin, and built by Hegarty’s of Cork. The style is based on domes resting on square bases and round arches. The nave of St Francis is covered by a dome with a drum and two other domes, with two arched transepts and a half-domed-apse. The aisles are cut off from the nave by round arches. From the outside, the two square flanking towers on either side of the facade are capped by small domes over drums. The beautiful window is divided by six mullions with round arches, carrying a honeycomb of tear-drops or flames. The San Damiano crucifix with spoke to Francis tops the facade. Irish features such as interlacing may be seen in many parts of the church. Stained glass in the church comes from the Harry Clarke studios in Dublin and mosaics are by Prof. Umberto Noni of Rome.”In another section of the leaflet, the following sentence occurs:
“The sanctuary was updated and the altar turned to face the people in line with the ideas of Vatican II during 1070-71. A reconciliation room was opened in 1988.”The leaflet refers to “the ideas of Vatican II” which were never expressed by that sacred council. Perhaps some aggiornamento of the leaflet is in order.
There should be a thread opened on mortuary chapels (in Irish churches) that have been turned into junkrooms and catch-alls. At St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, caskets are parked along the communion rail outside the mortuary chapel.
The mortuary chapel in St Patrick’s, Cork City has been converted into a bin into which have been cast all manner of benches, carpets, cleaning implements, and rubbish. Utterly disgusting, particularly in view of the mention in the leaflet of the significant and artistic windows that mark the dividing wall of that mortuary chapel.
July 24, 2008 at 1:10 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771778RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
The Holy Name of Jesus, Manchester.
Here we have the High Altar. Miraculoausly, this survived a terrible outburst of iconoclasm which saw the final Jesuit comminity at the Holy Name of Jesus send their extensive collection of relics to the Manchester Crematorium!!
A similar sacrilege was perpetrated by a secular priest at St Aloysius Church, Woodstock Rd, Oxford before the church was committed to the care of the Fathers of the Oratory. He had the entire contents of the reliquary chapel sent to a crematorium. Most of the relics were of the 16th-century martyrs of England and Wales, hence very rare given the mistreatment of their earthly remains after the brutality of hanging, drawing, and quartering.
Now that the Oratorians have St Aloysius, Woodstock Rd, Oxon., relics of other martyrs have been obtained and the reliquary chapel restored to its original use.
July 24, 2008 at 1:06 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771777RhabanusParticipant@Fiagai wrote:
These are magnificent buildings but with the decline of the catholic church in Ireland over the last decade who now finances these expensive restorations.
Likely the same poor folks who originally were burdened with the iconoclastic “renovations” in the 70s, 80s, or 90s.
By the way, the Holy Name of Jesus Church in Manchester has nothing to do with Ireland. Hope England has an attentive watchdog on the reorganisation and destruction of Catholic churches in England.
July 21, 2008 at 11:54 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771768RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
On a different subject, can anyone suggest a list a neo byzantine churches in Ireland?
Galway Cathedral comes to mind. Quite magnificent, really, with an impressive mosaic of the Rood (Calvary with the crucified Christ flanked by the BVM and St John Evangelist) dominating the Eastern wall.
The sanctuary and main altar are positioned beneath the dome at the transversal. Everything is in place: altar, communion rails, gates. Nothing has had to be done to this building in order to accommodate either Vatican II or the Council of Trent. In other words, the layout is equally appropriate for both usus antiquior (ritus extraordinarius) and the novus ordo (ritus ordinarius). The materials are of the finest quality. It looks spanking new even though it was built around 1955. Plenty of space and impressive sense of mystery. The building bishop obviously had vision and good taste – a rare combination today.
How did this magnificent building escape the notice of this venerable thread?
July 15, 2008 at 10:55 pm in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771764RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
Apparently, the next Fota Conferebnce will be on the topic of Sacred ARt and Archiotecture. That should be a welcome event.
Will it constitute one in a series of international liturgical conferences on the same topic, such as the one that took place last Saturday on Fota Island?
The whole notion of sacred art and architecture really needs renewed focus, particularly in the light of so much needless destruction of truly beautiful architecture and of course the really ugly, decadent stuff that has blighted the landscape and impoverished the Church for the past four decades or so.
It’s about time that those engaged in producing authentic sacred art and architecture had a chance to make their case.
Obviously one of the topics that should receive attention is the notion of a coherent theology of aesthetic, as well as the articulation of canons of beauty. Many today are left with the impression that all new church buildings are supposed to be ugly. [Who established that rule? – which is followed so closely, nay, slavishly, by the majority of ‘liturgical’ architects.] This should give serious liturgical artists and architects plenty of scope to explain how they approach the vocation of a church artist or architect.
Rhabanus doesn’t want to see any donkey jackets on the photographic coverage of such an event.
July 15, 2008 at 12:04 am in reply to: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches #771762RhabanusParticipant@Praxiteles wrote:
Just came across this today:
INTERNATIONAL LITURGICAL CONFERENCE
FOTA, CO. CORK, 12th July 2008-07-14
PRESS RELEASELast Saturday, a well-attended, International Liturgical Conference was held in the Sheraton Hotel Fota, Co. Cork, devoted to the topic: “Benedict XVI and the Sacred Liturgyâ€. It was the second such conference. The first was held in Columbus, Ohio last September. The third will be held in Budapest next August. These conferences explore the unexpected phenomenon of what is being called the “Benedictine reform†of the Liturgy – sometimes called the reform of the reform. The starting point for all the papers was the frank recognition that to date the reform of the Sacred Liturgy (i.e. the way we celebrate the sacraments, in partiuclar the Mass) ordered by the Second Vatican Council has been, to put it mildly, a mess. It is in urgent need of correction, a standpoint, it is claimed, which is shared by the Holy Father.
The Conference was chaired by Dr D. Vincent Twomey, SVD, Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, Maynooth, a former doctoral student of the then Joseph Ratzinger. In his introductory comments, Fr Twomey singled out Ratzinger’s theology of creation to highlight two central concerns to be found in the Pope’s extensive writings on liturgy, namely (1) the cosmic dimension of the liturgy and (2) the roots of the ritual of the Mass not only in the Word-liturgy of the Synagogue but also in the Temple worship now transformed in Christ. In the bungled reform of the liturgy after the Council, he claimed, both – the cosmic dimension of the liturgy as well as its roots in the Temple worship – were, for various reasons, practically ignored. The result is a truncated liturgy. Fr Twomey also pointed out that in Ratzinger’s sacramental theology and in his theology of the world religions, we find a profound appreciation of the fact that the ultimate roots of Christian sacred liturgy are to be found in the cultic rituals of humanity which reach back to the dawn of time. All of this has been ignored by the so-called liturgical experts who, for the first time in the history of the Church – indeed in the history of religions – began to fabricate the liturgy according to abstract principles of questionable theological provenance.
These themes were taken up by the impressive paper of international speakers.
The way we now speak only of “the liturgy†and no longer of “the Sacred Liturgy†well illustrates one of the main reasons why the reformed liturgy up to now has, on the whole, been a catastrophe: it increasingly lacks any reference to the Sacred or to Transcendence. James Hitchcock, Professor of History at St Louis University, USA, described the way the reform went wrong, primarily because of the way the secular assumptions of modernity became the determining factors in shaping the liturgy. Thus, for example, the object of the new type of secularized liturgy, it would seem, is to help people relax. Sacred space gives way to domesticated space, where people are supposed to feel “at homeâ€. The community ends up celebrating itself. The reformers, unfortunately, ignored the findings of anthropologists such as Mary Douglas, who recovered for us moderns the nature and centrality of symbol and ritual –and with ritual, the centrality of tradition in forming community, a community that reaches beyond the here-and-now to God, the angels and the saints in glory. In a word, the reformers fell prey to the spirit of the age.The internationally renowned English theologian and author, Dr Alcuin Read, described in some detail the major steps in the reform since the council. The original vision of the Council Fathers got lost in the hands of the so-called “liturgical expertsâ€, who, for the first time in the history of the Church began to fabricate liturgy in the abstract, as it were, instead of letting it organically develop. Central to the concern of the “liturgist†was the hermeneutics of discontinuity, as though all that had happened over the previous centuries had been a mistake and so something new had to be produced. Dr Read also outlined what he described as the four pillars of the “Benedictine Reformâ€, namely the Pope’s personal liturgical example, his insistence on historical and intellectual honesty with regard to the liturgical life of the Church in recent decades, his insistence on the correct celebration of the liturgy according to the liturgical books, and his desire for fidelity to received liturgical tradition. Central to this is the affirmation of the hermeneutics of continuity, expressed, for example, in the general permission to allow the pre-Vatican II rite (the so-called Tridentine Rite) to be celebrated and calling it the extraordinary rite.
The validity of the ordinary rite – the Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI – was stressed in the lively paper delivered by Mrs Hitchcock on the main features of the Benedictine Reform. Two extremes are to be avoided: rejecting the validity of either the old rite or the new. Both are expressions of the one, ancient liturgical tradition of the Latin Western Tradition. It is hoped that both will in time influence each other, since the older rite is itself in need of further development, e.g. the use of the vernacular in the readings, as already foreseen by the Pope’s decree authorizing the use of the older rite. But the main attention must be given to the celebration of the new or ordinary rite and the need to recover the cosmic dimension of the sacred liturgy, which Pope Benedict XVI has stressed over and over again.
A fascinating paper by the German theologian, Manfred Hauke, Professor of Dogmatic Theology at Lugano, Switzerland, introduced the participants to the life and work of the little-known liturgist, Klaus Gamber of Regensburg. Ratzinger once described him as the only scholar who truly represents the central tradition of the Church in matters liturgical. Professor Hauke described Gamber as the father of a new beginning in liturgical reform.
The reform of the rite at present currently in use must, for example, pay more attention to the sacred nature of the liturgy. In his learned paper, Dr Uwe Michael Lang, a German Oratorian priest and renowned patristic scholar now working the the Vatican Congregation for Worship and the Celebration of the Sacraments, discussed “Sacred Art in the Thought of Joseph Ratzingerâ€. The Pope is acutely aware that the contemporary crisis in art is a symptom of modernity’s crisis of identity, with the result that art today is neither refreshing nor inspiring. This is because modernity denies the transcendental nature of beauty, the identity of beauty with truth and goodness. This has had a profound influence on the art and architecture found in our churches. The heresy of iconoclasm (the destruction of images) thus returned with a vengeance. Statues and images were removed from churches and often destroyed. They were sometimes replaced by abstract art that simply confuses. One contributor commented that many modern churches have all the attraction of a fridge. Ratzinger once said, in effect, that the complete absence of images is not a Christian option. However, the romantic but basically modernist solution of A.W. Pugin, who recognized only the mediaeval art as truly Christian was also criticized, as it had been by Newman in his own day. The Pope calls for a truly creative sacred art that is at the same time contemporary and creative of something entirely new.
The Canadian editor of the periodical, Antiphon: A Journal for Liturgical Renewal, Dr Neil J. Roy read a scholarly paper on the richness of the Roman Canon, its internal order and beauty. He paid special attention to the lists of saints mentioned before and after the Consecration, showing how there was nothing arbitrary about the composition of the lists. The saints mentioned there cover the entire spectrum of saints and are arranged under two “headingsâ€, as it were, that of Our Lady on the one hand and St John the Baptist on the other, two saints who are depicted in sacred art both in the East and in the West as petitioning Our Lord on behalf of sinners.
The guest of honour and keynote speaker at the conference was the Argentinean Archbishop, Jorge Maria Cardinal Mejia. His opening address was on the problem of translation. Pointing out that translation was a consequence of sin, he outlined the biblical understanding of the origin of languages in the original sin that led to the Tower of Babel, punishment for which was the origin of the various languages of the world. Scripture also points to the healing that came with Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit which enable humanity to communicate with a common language once again, that of the faith. His scholarly discourse on the various translations of the Bible illuminated the significance and the limits to all attempts at translation Cardinal Mejia also presided over and preached at the concelebrated Mass according to the new rite (the Novus Ordo of Paul VI) in Latin in the magnificent Cobh Cathedral. The Lassulus singers of Dublin provided the music of Palestrina for the Mass. Their singing was as close to perfection as is possible, remarked the Cardinal at the end of Mass. This solemn Mass demonstrated that the new rite, when properly celebrated, can also be magnificent. It also can effect that “sursum cordaâ€, that raising of our hearts to God, the angels and the saints in communal worship, which is the object of authentic sacred liturgy.
Any idea as to the number of participants?
Fota Island must have afforded an absolutely perfect location for the conference. And very few venues could have surpassed the stunningly beautiful Cathedral of St Colman, Cobh to house the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. Palestrina is the ideal master of sacred polyphony. The sung Mass must have been “Heaven on earth” for participants.Rhabanus notes the wise integration of academic study on the Sacred Liturgy with the ars celebrandi. Now THAT’s the way to conduct a conference on the Sacred Liturgy!
Three international conferences within the space of a single year?? Looks as though the Benedictine Reform is making its mark. Let’s hope that it will have some effect in the area of architecture and the plastic arts.
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