"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
On Thursday we will be continuing the JP2 Group‘s study of worship in the Early Church by reading another extract from the Early Church. This text comes from the writing of Hippolytus of Rome (c AD 170 – 235) entitled “Apostolic Tradition” and was probably written in about AD 215.
Bishop: The Lord be with you.
All: And with your spirit.
Bishop: Lift up your hearts.
All: We lift them up to the Lord.
Bishop: Let us give thanks to the Lord.
All: It is proper and right.
This weekend I finished recording another document of the Church onto MP3. It is the decree on ecumenism from the Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio.
In that vein, I’d also invite you to read the article Because our love has grown cold, written by my friend Nelson. I think his blog post points to the key thing which is needed in order for there to any meaningful ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and non-Catholics.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” – John 17:20-23
For today’s entry in this series, I would like to address another comment which appeared on Facebook last year in response to my presence at the March For Life in Washington DC. One of my former work colleagues wrote the following:
“Pro life has to do with wanting people to live lives, including unborn children. But is the quality of life for both child and mother taken into consideration, or is it only about “saving” the life of the child?”
The question concerning quality of life is often raised in the abortion debate. The motivation behind it is good – we don’t want people to suffer, we want them to live the happiest lives possible.
I couple of weeks ago I posted my “Virgin Regret” series, my response to the story of a girl who remained a virgin until her wedding night and now regrets her decision. This series was actually a piece I originally wrote for the Goretti Group and I completely forgot to post a link to it when it was published on their website. So, to remedy that, here’s the link:
This was an interesting little tidbit I heard the other day…
Have you ever wondered about the origin of “hocus pocus”, the phrase commonly uttered by magicians?
Well, the story I recently heard was that it came from a corruption of the words of the Latin Mass:
“hoc (enim) est corpus meum”
“This is my body”
It sounded reasonable, but I went and did a little bit of digging…
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) says that this explanation was the conjecture of John Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. It can be found in his rather nasty sermon in 1694:
“In all probability those common juggling words of ‘hocus pocus’ are nothing else but a corruption of ‘hoc est corpus’, by way of ridiculous imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their trick of Transubstantiation.”
It’s possible that the Archbishop is right here, but it’s clear that he isn’t exactly the most impartial judge!
It has been suggested instead that the phrase is simply “faux Latin”, a collection of nonsense words conjured up out of thin air 😉 to aid the magician in his stagecraft. I’ve found references to a performer of the 1620s who called himself “Hocus Pocus” and who used the following incantation in his act:
“Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo.”
Unfortunately, there’s a lack of definitive evidence to confirm with any real certainty the origin of this phrase – there really are quite a wide range of possibilities. Still, speculation is fun 🙂
Continuing my response to Monica’s comments concerning Mary, today I would like to continue providing a Catholic response to her objections, which today will chiefly focus around the subject of mediation.
In our First Reading this week Isaiah consoles Israel, promising a time will come when wrongs will be made right, when “the ears of the deaf [will] be cleared” and the dry lands be refreshed. From the very beginning of the Bible, a Saviour was promised, a Messiah who would heal the rupture between man and God. Isaiah’s words find their fulfillment in this Sunday’s Gospel Reading as Jesus restores a man’s hearing, a sign that the long awaited Messiah had finally come…
