Catholic Renaissance

Catholic Renaissance http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002 Notes on Catholicism's Artistic Heritage | Excerpts from Hereditas Magazine Print Issues en Copyright 2008, St John Bookshoppe Media Center Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:12:57 GMT Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:12:57 GMT Summorum Pontificum http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002+00000012#00000012 Well, the liturgy isn't, per se, "art" but it is the source of all truly Catholic art, hence this article from the London Telegraph in the "arts" Category: June 14, Damian Thompson:   <h2>"The traditional Latin Mass – effectively banned by Rome for 40 years – is to be reintroduced into every Roman Catholic parish in England and Wales, the senior Vatican cardinal in charge of Latin liturgy said at a press conference in London today."</h2>   The Cardinal went on to say that it is the Holy Father's intion that the traditional liturgy be offered in every parish (in the world) and that seminaries will be required to train priests to celebrate the ancient rite. <a title="Traditional Mass to Return to England and Wales (and beyond)." href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2129070/Latin-mass-to-return-to-England-and-Wales.html" target="_blank">Read the entire article</a>.     tridentine massdamian thompsoncardinal hoyostraditional latin mass Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:43:32 GMT About time! http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002+00000007#00000007   Ad maiorem Dei gloriam By Hugh J. McNichol  There is a new wind blowing within the architectural designs of Church buildings in Catholicism. It is the restoration of the Church's ancient and traditional appreciation of our Eucharistic celebration as an act of transcendence towards a deeper understanding of the Divine. New church buildings and sanctuaries are undergoing a restoration of traditional applications of classical art and architectural motifs, which thankfully call our liturgical prayer to an awesome appreciation of the mysteries of salvation history. Time and space again are reconciled through the architecture of this shrine that loudly calls the worshiper to metaphysical and ontological beliefs that go beyond modern presentations of secular humanism, towards an ascent into the sacred mystery of God's existence.   Read the entire, encouraging, column at the <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/columns.php?sub_id=13" target="_blank">Catholic News Agency</a> site. vatican 2church architecturetraditional architecturehugh j mcnicholhugh mcnichol Wed, 07 May 2008 01:56:03 GMT Doug Gresham Interview http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002+00000005#00000005 From the Christian Film and Television Commission, Monday May 5 "When a cherished book becomes a movie, the book fans usually cringe. Yet, three years ago, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE burst onto the screen, satisfying even the most ardent fan of C.S. Lewis' literary classic. The man most responsible for keeping the integrity of the initial book was producer and stepson to Lewis, Douglas Gresham. Now the next book, PRINCE CASPIAN, comes to the screen this month. Thus, the question in the minds of Lewis fans is, "Can they give us a film that's faithful to the book again?"" Read the entire article on the <a href="http://www.movieguide.org/?s=articles&id=260" target="_blank">MovieGuide Website</a> and help get the word out. doug greshamc s lewisnarniathe lion the witch and the wardrobeprince caspian Tue, 06 May 2008 01:19:40 GMT Embracing Confusion http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002+00000003#00000003 By Elizabeth Moeller Mrs Moeller is a part time teacher in a one room schoolhuse, mother, farmer, writer, and linguist.  She shares with us her pasion for the joy of language.  This is her first appearance in our pages, but she will hear from us if she doesn't keep writing. ~~~~~ I love to have been there at the birth of so many words and sounds, satisfying my toddling discontent with one language known by everyone. No funny nuances, no mispronunciations, just undeviating word order or inflectional endings that stop nothing. Hello….. hylo….. hola….. hallo. I would have loved the moment of confusion in Babel, like a nymph coming out of the same boring brown cocoon as everyone else, but suddenly with a whole new world of colors to name. There's little better than old Latin carols like Personent Hodie, or the lush taste of listening to French in a chic restaurant, the scent of parmesan and Italian marble and glass proclaiming nel mezzo del camine di nostra vita, the beauty of Chinese calligraphy on rice paper, Arabic carved in stones so lightly they should float on water, Swahili greetings that embrace like good friends, Celtic crosshatch carving patterns of lost sounds. I would cry if such various beauty disappeared into infinitely reflecting identical grammars. I ni sogoma….. ohio gosaimas….. salaam….. kia . . . oro. The God of freckles punished with a marvelous gift, felix culpa. I've loved learning new languages, dead languages, notations and ciphers.  I savor the sound of synonymous concepts sympathetically vibrating like three piano strings tuned to one note, like the overtones of a perfectly sung a cappella chord. Guten tag….. gei sou….. namaste….. ciao. Language itself for me is the ultimate puzzle for entertainment. I can turn down the volume or turn it up; however, I can shut down my computer but when I shut up I have to be quiet. Prison and jail are synonyms but prisoner and jailer are antonyms. Why? We have twelve or a dozen, but the French only have douze. But the French have memorizer or approfondir.  I love it when I can use different words for remembering my father's face and remembering my cell phone number. It's so different, but in English, not so shaded. Bonjour….shalom….. hau kola….. aloha. Numbers are the key for me. Learn to count from one to ten and all else seems possible. I've told my patient friends who ask me how I manage to travel so comfortably a very silly story. My daughter has an itchy knee.  She fell in some sand. She was trying to go down a rocky slope. She put cheese on it. She hates cheese. Could you help her? I then pattern about five times. Itchy-knee-sanshe-go-rock-shechee-hachee-could-jyou (because we really do pronounce it with a "j" sound). I then explain that they've learned to count to ten in Japanese. We all have the same teeth and lips and tongue and mouth. We just mean different things when we make the same sounds.  Annyoung hasimnikka…..sawadi crap….. jambo….. Zdravo. Some languages have so many ways to say hello, so many greetings, it can take a while just to learn them.  I use Bambara when teaching little ones time. I ni sogoma, I ni wari, I be di, I ni su are used for good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night. We look at the digital clock to see what part of the day it should be and answer in Bambara.  Hands wave and boys answer m'ba while girls respond n'se, first, learning that many languages have different genders. All are more entertained, and the lesson is learned. Nih hao…. .adaab….. sawubona….. kiana. Some things are special. I've found to my displeasure that Musetta's Waltz from La Boheme should only be sung in Italian. All else is vowel abuse.  The Chinese character for "longevity" looks better than any calligraphy for bat. And the same hated little creatures, vesper, seems to sleep prayerfully in Latin. Peace… paix….. shalom…. Kyuui. Sound matters in language, as well as looks. Scholars will forever debate whether onomatopoeia is real or imaginary, but some things just sound funny. My kids love to laugh when they say gokibootie even though we have no cockroaches in our apartment. But cucaracha gets people up and dancing without much trouble. While butterflies really should be renamed flutterbys, they're even better as mariposa amarillo. Speaking of colors, if the sounds of the names aren't important we'd number them in the hardware store.  But color samples draw words from so many languages to evoke so much more than multiple shades of red. Hej….. Hei….. Oy….. Arru. If you write the letter that represents the "r" sound in Russian as a coiled rope it's easier to remember even if it does look like a "p". Complain to the Greeks not the Russians. And I love writing my name in Greek letters just to confuse people looking for my room. Actually I have an unfair advantage. My name means something-that herb that goes on chicken, grows all over and many languages have a name for it. I can just say my name is________ , wherever I go and it sounds familiar to others' ears.   We have strange responses to hearing names. It is the essence of the bully to mock someone's name. It is an unconscious rudeness to mispronounce or easily forget a person's name. Names are meaningful to us, important to our sense of who we are. With a little patience and practice even Dostoyevsky's characters can be familiar.  Just because people in Thailand have the longest names in the world doesn't mean it's impossible to learn them, just difficult.  Kayira be…. merhaba….. osiyo….. zdravstuvite. Languages are confusing, challenging, beautiful and powerful. Language reaches deeply into us as we share and pray and reach out, trying to make sense of the confusion. But I would embrace it and try rather than hide away and not celebrate the variety of language's pied beauty. Respect…. Initiram….Sevasmos…. Sonkei. languagemoeller Sat, 03 May 2008 20:31:55 GMT New Media, New Issue http://www.igroops.com/members/robinson/blog/VIEW+00000002+00000002#00000002 Well, I do wish we'd had this application when I first started the Hereditas Blog back in 2005! But with the Spring Issue of Hereditas hot off the press and the new Media Center up and running, I thought I'd start posting here and leave the old blog up for posterity. It was fun but I see lots more possibilities for this one. Lots of things about the new issue have me really excited. Colleen Drippe', the editor, wrote an inspiring "<a href="http://www.hereditasmagazine.com/spring_2008/from_editor.html" target="_blank">From the Editor</a>", Diane Moczar granted us an interview, Daniel Mitsui provided us with some amazing art work, our new layout person, Therese Daigenais, did a wonderful job...and the list goes on. Stay tuned; I'll be adding excerpts from these fine artists' work.     Sat, 03 May 2008 19:22:56 GMT