“With almost superhuman stamina, O. resurrects the method of counting grammatical forms and constructions … Apart from the number-crunching, one often admires the agility … the logic is at times exuberant, almost manic, and there is the occasional swipe at those with whom he disagrees (including this reviewer: but I really hadn’t thought of aspect as a “sensitive and even emotionally charged issue” until I read this book).”
By golly. What an incredible feat, and what a wonderful review.
“So once I had a student ask me, Wasn’t Justin [the Martyr] fearful, going through his whole life as ‘the Martyr’?”
For memory’s sake, I must memorialise this anecdote from the Cenaculum. We’d had a lecture about the Norbertine Order the day before, and were presently viewing photos from various Dominican churches around Florence. This one image had us stumped trying to figure it out…
“Fortasse…est Jesus sancti Dominicani a purgatorio salvantes?”
Appreciative murmurs arise from the crowd.
“Ubi est Norbertini?”
Then Michael C. replies, “In caelo.”
Two words: Baritone solo.
(And then some more words, like ‘O what a lovely lyrical arrangment’, and ‘What sensitive singing’, and so on.)
In this short interview Daleiden mentions the TLM as one source from which he has drawn strength and consolation, and says, “where we offer the best of what we have to God, in spite of our own weaknesses–and on account of our own weaknesses as well–so that God will take it, bless it, transform it, and use it to transform the world.”
I love the allusion to the Roman Canon here,
“Quam oblationem tu, Deus, in omnibus, quæsumus, benedictam, adscriptam, ratam, rationabilem, acceptabilemque facere digneris: ut nobis Corpus et Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui, Domini nostri Iesu Christi.“
The story of the Latin Mass in Singapore is the story of the mustard seed. This “seed” was watered, not by Western expatriates or foreign priests, but by the patient prayers and material contributions of a tiny group of laity, who remained faithful even when the “ground” seemed dauntingly rocky.
Read more here. I am happily surprised to see this kind of public endorsement for the EF. (:
The elderly priest’s voice is strong and untouched by melancholy. The cares of old age don’t weigh upon him. To Msgr. Topper, there is little difference between the earthly life and life eternal, “because when you are ordained, you are in heaven.”
On Harrisburg, PA’s Msgr Topper, the oldest and longest-serving priest in the US. At the National Catholic Register.
So it seems that the latest Detective Conan full-length feature is inspired by the Singapore Flyer. I was watching it on the plane (gah, what is it, 36 more hours until I get home?) and couldn’t quite believe my eyes when the credits featured footage of the Marina Bay skyline, and Gardens by the Bay. It’s funny how the things that seem dinkiest and least impressive to someone who lives there—and especially things that are so novel and phantasmic as the features of Singaporean contemporary urban planning are—can be the most inspiring to others. It’s a strange taste I’m not sure I want to understand, but y’know, there is still something to call home.
The film, by the way, is excellent. From the opening fight sequence you can tell it’s a well-animated. No Dragonball-style fight scenes here, although the degree to which angles and shots try to do something novel drops off significantly after the first act. I have no qualms with that, and anyway, there’s something very comforting about Conan’s world, where a kid who looks 10 basically can run around with FBI agents and save the world.
I sang this as part of the motet choir at the Colloquium this year, and I remember how, from the very first chord, there was a blooming warmth behind my eyes, and it just got better and better. Since Colloquium folks are all such accomplished sight-readers (or enough of us are that the rest can hitch a ride) the first chord quickly yielded to the first bar which yielded to the first cadence and then the rest of the piece. (The first cadence really is something special, though.)
The text is Justorum animae, which is the offertory for All Saints’ as well as several other martyrs. I believe that in this case it was the feast day of St Thomas More and St John Fisher, who were both martyrs, so this would’ve been fitting.
It’s actually a very simple text: justorum animae in manu Dei sunt, et non tanget illos tormentum malitiae; visi sunt populi insipientium mori, illi autem sunt in pace. The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and the torment of evil will not touch them; in the sight of the unwise they are seen to die, but they are in peace.
Sung one way (i.e. with lots of bombast or drama) it could turn out a very grossly overblown piece–after all, already in its construction it is very Romantic. And I think that’s how we sang it, although that was somewhat out of desperation, when you hang on to and amplify every small direction because that’s all you can do, nothing’s holding together… Anyway. The forward momentum that is established from the first phrase is really wonderful and important to establishing the paradoxical relationship between sorrow for the death of saints (as they are most certainly in another world per the text), and a resolute and clearheadedly hopeful and faithful determination that they are at peace.
Music, man.
the lexical form 
