Nowadays the inclusion of hymns, chants and sequences in Eucharistic worship is a well-established and much-loved feature of liturgical celebration that we tend to take for granted. How this came about is the subject of this present fascinating study in which John Blakesley guides us through the growth and development of chant, office hymns, sequences and tropes and their increased use in the Church of the Middle Ages.St Ambrose is credited with introducing hymns into the Western Church in the fourth century, and over the next five centuries hymns in his style were the only legitimate form of liturgical poetry. The revival of learning in the Carolingian period led to an outburst of creativity in the writing of tropes and sequences to be sung at Mass. Though opposed by some churchmen, these non-biblical embellishments were defended by Walafrid, the gentle Abbot of Reichenau, who saw that the inclusion of sung poetry could help reinforce the truths of the Gospel.The greatest exponent of the early sequence was a ninth-century monk from Saint Gall, known as Notker 'the Stammerer', and many examples of his output are included here in translation. Notker's work is contrasted with the more naively exuberant output of the Winchester school and the elaborate biblical typology of the Victorines of Paris, whose sequences are like intricate mosaics of scriptural imagery. The Victorines' interest in contemplative ecstasy was to influence the Rhineland visionaries: the distinctive genius of St Hildegard of Bingen and the liturgical visions of her friend Elisabeth of Schönau. Medieval Christians had a strong sense of the Communion of Saints; their earthly worship really did take place 'with Angels and Archangels' and shared in the worship of Heaven. Nourished through liturgy, poetry, and the visual arts, the roots of this imagery are in the biblical texts used to enrich liturgical celebration and to foster devotion.That the dramatic symbolism of the liturgy could make the events of the Gospel vividly present to the worshipper's mind and heart, is fully demonstrated in this book through translations of poetry inspired by late medieval devotion to the Lord's Passion and Death, the Resurrection and the opening up of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Anglican objections to Roman Catholic beliefs often focus on the status of the Virgin Mary and devotion to her, and that of the Pope and his exercise of supreme authority. In this second volume of Certain Difficulties felt by Anglicans John Henry Newman brought together two 'Open Letters' which address these key issues.In A Letter Addressed to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D.,on Occasion of His Eirenicon (1866) Newman corrects the misconceptions of his former Oxford Movement colleague Professor Edward Pusey who had attacked Catholic Marian devotional practices. Newman expounds the early Fathers' teaching about Mary as the 'Second Eve' who was chosen to be the Mother of God; and he shows how Catholic devotion always honours her for the humility with which she accepted this call.Nine years later William Gladstone, then the British prime Minister, published an attack on the 1870 promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility, arguing that it was unscriptural and was incompatible with the loyalty of Catholics to the British crown. Newman's reply, A Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (the leading Catholic layman in England), explains the exact meaning of the definition, as opposed to the extreme Catholic Ultramontane interpretation of it. He also gives a classic exposition of the true meaning of conscience and its relation to Church authority.This first ever critical edition of these works has a substantial Editor's Introduction, examining the issues and setting the historical context, and provides comprehensive notes to Newman's text.Newman collected both 'Letters' as Volume II of Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching. This is the first critical edition of this volume and contains detailed historical and critical introductions and footnotes to explain Newman's many historical and other references.
England is full of reminders of its deeply Christian roots. Some are obvious, like the great medieval cathedrals or the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. Others take a little more searching.This fascinating book traverses the highways and byways of Catholic England: ancient churches, ruined abbeys, little-known saints, recusant houses, and stories of courageous witness to the Faith. It shows that the Christian Faith is in the very DNA of England, and reminds us that round every corner there is often a surprise. The book does not claim to be a comprehensive guide to religious 'sites', but offers an intriguing celebration of our Catholic patrimony across the nation ¿-art and architecture, classic spirituality, popular piety, venerable tradition and folk memory. Dissolution and martyrdom, foundation and revival: each place has its own unique colour and its own lessons for us today.Although the focus of the book is largely Catholic, a number of the buildings it features are now in the care of the Church of England and so also relate to the wider Christian story in this land.
"The mystery of the human person becomes truly clear only in the mystery of the Incarnate Word." Taken from the Constitution Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council, this phrase is the foundation of Christian anthropology, an area very often neglected in theological studies. Mgr Jean Laffitte offers us a wealth of reflections on a wide range of themes including the family, love, life, suffering and death, the moral conscience, society, Christian action, forgiveness and the Heart of Christ. What is striking on reading these pages is the great unity that emerges, making this work a decisive contribution to Christian reflection on the nature of the human person, their place in society, aspirations and choices, origin and destiny. The light of Revelation illuminates every dimension of existence and of those fundamental human experiences so often evoked by Pope St John Paul II. At a time when, one by one, the pillars that support the complex nature of the human being are crumbling, and in particular when the bonds of paternity and sonship are being eroded, the author traces the contours of a true filial anthropology-the expression is destined to become a milestone-the only one capable of giving human persons an understanding of the meaning of their life, as well as an answer to the questions and concerns in their mind and heart. The eternal Son reveals to us the secret of our created being: we are sons in the Son, chosen and loved.
The emergence of nuns as members or associates or followers of the Cistercian Order is shrouded in uncertainty. They are not mentioned in the earliest document of the White Monks, the Exordium Parvum, compiled by perhaps 1150, nor in the first codification of Cistercian statutes in 1202. Yet, by the year 1200, in France alone some one hundred nunneries claimed to be Cistercian. From the early to mid-thirteenth century there was to be a rapid growth in the number of convents, reminiscent of the speedy advance of the male houses of the Order in the previous century. By the time of the European Reformation the number of convents in Europe and the Near East claiming to be Cistercian has been variously estimated at between five and nine hundred. In this study, David Williams charts the growth of these female houses ¿ their foundation, the different physical locations of the convent sites, their buildings and possessions, the communities and their finances and their daily life ¿ incorporating a wealth of fascinating detail about many of the nuns themselves and of their royal, aristocratic and clerical patrons. It is a significant contribution to an important aspect of women's history in the mediaeval period.
Aidan Nichols has been contributing to theological literature since the beginning of the 1980s. Now in his seventy-fifth year, he looks back not only at his writings but at the three-quarters of a century of life from which they came. He explains how, despite a nominally Anglican background, his early sense of the transcendent was really of God in nature. Only through an experience in the Russian church in Geneva did he become a confessing Christian. Back home, where he was left a teenage orphan, he moved from Anglo-Catholicism into the Roman Catholic Church. After reading Modern History at Oxford, that led by a natural progression to becoming a Religious and a priest. In this book Nichols describes the wide variety of situations in which he has lived in Scotland, Norway, Rome, France, Ethiopia, and Jamaica, as well as England and the United States. Over the years, drawing on not only Catholic but also Orthodox and Anglican sources, he has produced a small library of books, touching on many areas of theology and culture while also seeking, at different times, to bind them together into a coherent unity, inspired by, principally, two great giants: Thomas Aquinas, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. For Aidan Nichols, the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI were a halcyon time. Things have been more difficult under the successor to these popes. He explains the problems he has encountered, both theoretical and practical, and his search for a resolution that is satisfactory both theologically and autobiographically. He ends his apologia with a raft of proposals for the stabilization and enrichment of ecclesial life in the decades to come.
Nicholas Harpsfield's remarkable career spanned almost the whole course of the Reformation in England. Born in 1519, he was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford, before migrating to Louvain, eager to escape the increasingly ardent Protestantism of Edward VI's reign. There he was among the circle of family and friends of Sir Thomas More: Harpsfield's presentations of the life and thought of More were an especially vital component of his work, and also deserve deeper reflection, not least because of the way in which they shaped subsequent generations of Catholic writers. Returning to England in 1553 at the accession of Queen Mary, Harpsfield was launched on a career in the English church which was meteoric in its progress-a key interpreter and proponent of the project for the renewal of the Catholic faith. As Archdeacon of Canterbury and Vicar-General of London, he was well-known for his thorough and searching Visitation of the capital, and his passion for conformity and orthodoxy, zealous in the cause of restoring the altars and the apparatus of traditional devotion in churches, but also to ensure the adequate housing of priests and the effective catechesis and care of the people. Imprisoned after Mary's death until his own in 1575, Harpsfield became a figure of inspiration for the exiled Catholic community in mainland Europe. His extensive literary output, together with his role in shaping the Marian religious renewal, was to make him a crucial influence on later English Catholics and their recusant identity. Seen through the lens of Nicholas Harpsfield, English Reformation Catholicism assumes greater internal coherence and consistency than many of its recent commentators have allowed.
Walking with Father Vincent is a montage of anecdotes, clippings, thoughts and insights centering around the remarkable life of Father Vincent McNabb, OP, (d. 1943), an Irishman from Portaferry, County Down, and perhaps the best-known Dominican Friar of the twentieth century. A fixture on the streets of London for decades, Father Vincent was an ascetic and a prophet, a theologian and a writer, a teacher and a preacher, a debater and a Thomist and, to many, quite simply a saint. Yes, Father Vincent was unusual-in holiness, in learning, in love, and even in appearance. G. K. Chesterton said of him "nobody who ever met or saw or heard Father McNabb has ever forgotten him."Written in brief, readable segments by Father Vincent's great-grandnephew, an American Lay Dominican and writer, who infuses his own experiences and gives great insight into the role of family-the McNabb family, and the family in general-Walking with Father Vincent details a remarkable life, while presenting remedies for some of our contemporary problems. Through the vehicle of Father Vincent's legendary walking, the author invites the reader to accompany them both, as he highlights the timeless truth and prophetic insight his uncle preached about, wrote about, and lived so dramatically. Walking with Father Vincent is a story needed now more than ever, a story of great personal holiness and devotion, a life of love fostered in a deeply Catholic home, a life lived with joy and vigor, bravely, and unflinchingly, for the purpose of saving souls, and in defense of eternal Christian Truth.
The strong and continuing interest in John Henry Newman, particularly following his beatification by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 and subsequent canonisation by Pope Francis in 2019, inspired the idea that pilgrims might find it useful to have a guide to places in London associated with him: where he was born, where he grew up, where he spent childhood summers ... places of which he had warm memories, later recalled during his long life. Compared to Oxford and Birmingham, the English cities with which he is chiefly associated, Newman's London has received relatively little attention, and visitors to the capital seeking information about his life there have hitherto not been given much help. This book is an attempt to remedy that. For the convenience of visitors, it also includes a chapter on places outside of London with Newman connections.The text is designed to be read for enjoyment as well as for information, and also to provide some background on Newman's life and on his importance in our country's Christian story.
Clare Wilson, long widowed, nearly eighty, and mostly alone in the Kensington flat where she has lived for decades, is used to the losses of old age. Her oldest friend has died; after years the pain of losing a child has not faded; and the young have lives of their own to live. While she struggles to sustain her faith in God and her hope for an England which makes her increasingly unhappy and increasingly ashamed, she is astonished and sustained by the gift of a new friendship. This, appearing so late in her life, is something she could not have imagined. It brings her not only someone to talk to during the peculiar months of Covid restrictions and distancing, but understanding of a country and a tragic history of which she knew nothing. Two old people in London, keeping each other company, should surely be safe from the horrors of the outside world.
The Douai Martyrs are a group of one hundred and fifty-nine men who were martyred for the Catholic Faith in England and Wales between 1577 and 1680. The vast majority of the martyrs were priests who were trained at Douai College in northern France before risking their lives by returning to Britain to minister undercover, trying to avoid capture by the State and a barbaric death. Beatifying many of the Douai Martyrs in 1987, Pope St John Paul II declared:'Each of them chose to be 'God's servant First'. They consciously and willingly embraced death for love of Christ and the Church. They too chose the Kingdom above all else. If the price had to be death they would pay it with courage and joy. Blessed Nicholas Postgate welcomed his execution 'as a short cut to heaven'. Blessed Joseph Lambton encouraged those who were to die with him with the words 'Let us be merry, for tomorrow I hope we shall have a heavenly breakfast.' Blessed Hugh Taylor, not knowing the day of his death, said: 'How happy I should be if on this Friday, on which Christ died for me, I might encounter death for him.' He was executed on that very day, Friday 6 November 1585. For them this price was small compared to the riches they could bring to their people in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.'
A dramatic 'sign of the times', the epidemic of loneliness has been spreading in various forms throughout society in recent decades, particularly in the West. Because of this malady of our times, many of the men and women of our epoch experience the unhappiness of 'lonely modernity'. To respond to this affliction and counter the consequences of the retreat of Christian culture, this book proposes a new initiative, a new social ministry, a new apostolate: pastoral care for loneliness. Examining the causes and the aspects of this epidemic, the author offers a series of proposals for the implementation and the development of this new form of pastoral care. As a response to Christ's instruction to care for the afflicted, and forming part of the 'New Evangelisation', this book is addressed to everyone-Christians, those of other religions and those of no religion at all-but is especially an appeal to the Catholic world: clergy, religious orders, charitable groups and lay associations. As the author concludes: 'how beautiful it would be if after our deaths Christ could say to us: "I was alone, I suffered because of it, and you kept me company."'
Saint Benedict is the incarnation of western monastic life. Abbot Xavier shows us the heart of Benedictine wisdom through the saint's life and that of the most distinguished members of his order. He presents the great insights of his Rule, full of realism and astonishingly contemporary. The treasures of praise, communion, fraternity and humility can be ours. This is an authoritative guide for those who wish, without leaving the world, to follow Christ in the spirit of Saint Benedict: 'Dare to desire God, and life in God, Saint Benedict is still saying to us today, dare to entrust yourself completely to His infinite mercy, and enter ever more fully into the great joy of hope.'
Account of how Olivier Clement was led to see beyond the sensuous sun of the Mediterranean and to discover, or rather to be found by, 'the Other Sun'-Christ, the 'Sun of Righteousness' (Malachi 4:2).
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