I watch true crime shows when I should be writing crime fiction. Mary, neighbor and another lover of true crime shows, smiled at the thought of visiting the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, but now it's being remodeled. THAT IS A CRIME.
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Who signed a November 1971 letter to Pope Paul VI that asked him not to suppress the 1962 Mass? Fifty notable people, including novelists Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Nancy Mitford, and Iris Murdoch, conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and other companies Colin Davis, The Times (or The Times of London) editor William Rees-Mogg, journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and actor Ralph Richardson. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. The Law of Prayer is the Law of Faith. Other Latin Mass lovers are Bill Murray, Pet Shop Boys Neil Tennant, Simon Callow, Jimmy Fallon, and female writer for Downton Abbey Julian Fellowes.
Credits: three sources, including Sensus Fidelium. A q and some d's. Quotient comes from Latin and means “how many times.” That makes sense. If one divides a number by another number, one is figuring out how many times the second number goes into the first. When dividing 10 (the dividend) by two (the divisor), the quotient is five. There are 32 ways to say divide in Latin. Here is one - divido - I divide.
From wordgenius.com, here are Latin phrases that persist: quid pro quo, bona fide, persona non grata, carpe diem, status quo, et cetera, ad hoc, de facto, and vice versa. The language is not dead. I get telestic over q words. Quoque (also), is the favorite, and then there's quattuor (four), quinque (five), plus neque (nor). Pronounce the e as a. There is a friend at church whose name is Quentin. We call him Q.  Our schools will not graduate an Aristotle, the student of Plato, the student of Socrates. Our schools manufacture assembly line Fords, Toyotas, and MINI Coopers. We need Mr. Chips and Mrs. Chips, and Father Smith and Sister Aloysius, to tutor our boys and girls throughout their lives so they can pass on what they know. Not mentors (shopworn word!), but patrimonia and matrimonia of assets of the intellectual kind.
Our youngest and smallest altar boy served at Mass today. He was paired with the Blond Redwood, our tallest priest. This little saint shifted from knee to knee on the hardwood floor. He struggled holding the large Burse, a square container for the Corporal, which is a square linen that is spread out on the altar for the chalice. The Sacred Host rests there for a time. I stifled my laughter.
My old friend sat next to me at Mass. He leaned over and whispered, “Sometimes, I want to cry.” Same here.
New friend Augustine, a civil engineer aged 24, talked with me about the Introit for 8-29-21. The Introit comes after the prayers at the foot of the altar, the Confiteor, and more. In the Introit, fainteth has lovely connotations. I think of a swooning lover when a literary romance blooms. I think of a soft flower when it buds. We think of budding as the beginning stage, but actually it is the stage right before ripening - full maturity. Fainteth also imparts an overwhelming force in action, more than mere physical sensation. A most pleasurable aspect of The New Roman Missal (1962) is the poetry of its English translation. The English word deficit comes from the Latin deficit, meaning “it is wanting”. How much more powerful and fragile is the substitution - fainteth. The conviction that the translation is superior germinated in September 2020, and the conviction pullulated over time. Literary beauty does that. The language lover who avoids the 1962 Mass is enfeebled, and Catholics who have never seen the Missal are missing hidden linguistic treasure. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi - The Law of Prayer is the Law of Faith.  May this prayer give you meaning and steadiness when you hear the Wailing Women of Kabul. Have mercy on me, O God. Psalm 51 The ubiquitous occurrence of the exponential function in pure and applied mathematics has led mathematician W. Rudin to opine that the exponential function is "the most important function in mathematics". In applied settings, exponential functions model a relationship in which a constant change in the independent variable gives the same proportional change (that is, percentage increase or decrease) in the dependent variable. [Courtesy of Wikipedia] Applied to Catholicism, the independent variable, we might say, is God's call, the percentage increase or decrease of which, however, might or might not be proportional to the change in the dependent variable. Here is a list of surprising dependent variables.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Converts_to_Roman_Catholicism I might quibble a little with others who say there is progression in Catholic tradition or in anything. If God lives in the present, everything is present to Him, and so it is. We live in time and sense progression. Each of us adds some little thing to Him, not because we are anything but because we are His, and He wants us to think and create and unveil. Therefore, all that is good is present, and nothing that is good can be eliminated, ever. Nor will we be condemned for loving the good.
This Mass is taught in university music classes. Wikipedia has a good explanation, and I use this resource often because the entry on the Catholic Church is accurate. I spoke by email with Father Gabet, who says Mass felicitously. In the old footage you will see three priests vested in white at the altar. Two are biological brothers. According to The Times of India, the following are the most beautiful sounding words in English; you be the judge: serendipity, hiraeth, sonorous, petrichor, iridescent, luminous, phoenix, lullaby, rendezvous, ancient, reverie, elixir, evanescent, mellifluous, sumptuous, and willow. Now, guess how many come from Latin.
Here is classical Latin. I spoke to McNamara by email. He teaches university-level Latin now, but in 2007 he did some Latin updating. For fun, Alexander, my youngest student, and I greet each other classically, saying Salve and Vale, Hail and Goodbye. McNamara uses Salvete because he is addressing a multitude. Here is an excellent recording of the Passion in Latin. The singers have perfect diction and trill their r’s beautifully, as professional singers are trained to do. Every Sunday I get to listen to Latin, which has inherent rhyme and stateliness. Over 60 percent of English words have Greek or Latin roots, and in the sciences and technology the figure rises to over 90 percent. Some test prep books for national exams list the roots, which is why I ask the students to memorize them. As of 2016, English vocabulary is 29% French, 29% Latin, 26% Germanic, 6% Greek, and the remaining 10% is either other languages or proper names. Two Latin words frequently sung in this recording are dixit (he said) and respondit (he responded). The singer who sings the role of Pontius Pilate has a slightly higher voice than the narrator. Listen long enough to hear them all: narrator, Pontius Pilate, Jesus [bass voice], and crowd. My favorite Latin phrase is, Quod scripsi, scripsi. In English, What I have written, I have written. Pilate said that in response to the objection to the sign that he ordered to be nailed on the cross above Jesus's head: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews). It was written in three languages: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. We see it abbreviated to INRI. For the Passion libretto in Latin and English, copy and paste the following into your search engine... https://www.scribd.com/document/258090504/Arvo-Pa-rt-Passio-Texts-and-Translations  Charles Laughton, second favorite actor. In June, I posted a picture of my favorite actor.
favorite actresses: Anya Taylor-Joy The Miniaturist Barbara Stanwyck Sorry, Wrong Number Joan Crawford Strait-Jacket Meryl Streep Doubt Rita Hayworth Separate Tables Emily Blunt The Young Victoria I spoke to Diane Baker about her performance in Strait-Jacket. She shrugged it off, but she held her own with Joan. Just a guess: the title came first and then the plot. When I told Diane I was writing a novel and was listening to dialog from movies, she asked me if it was a screenplay. No. However, over the course of several tutoring sessions, my brilliant student, Alexander, wrote a screenplay with characters and plot and some dialog. It is titled, You Only Live Ten Times, and is full of dangerous action near Area 51. An FBI agent chases an alien who is trying to obtain plans for a new nuclear weapon. The agent kills the alien ten times, but he miraculously returns to life each time. To find out more, contact me. Father Joshua Curtis, FSSP (Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter), a 38-year-0ld convert, wrote a piece in today's Sunday bulletin titled, "Microchimerism: Our Lady & Our Lord."
"Microchimerism is defined as the presence of two or more genetically distinct cell populations in one individual. During pregnancy, a two-way transfer of cells takes place between the mother and her baby in utero. During the first few weeks after conception, cells from both mother and baby pass back and forth across the placenta. During pregnancy, up to 10 percent of the DNA of the mother's bloodstream comes from her baby. After the baby is born, the percentage of the baby's DNA in the mother drops, but some cells remain functional for the rest of the mother's life. Also, as a result of this wonderful exchange of life, children will have cells from their mother that will likewise live in them. For both mother and child, the cells from the other are actively involved in their health over their lifetime." Father Curtis referenced http://www.catholicmessenger.net/2019/01/the-eternal-mother-child-connection/ An alternate resource dated Jan 11, 2018 is https://aeon.co/essays/microchimerism-how-pregnancy-changes-the-mothers-very-dna This is stunning news when you consider Our Lord and His mother. Because she was assumed into heaven body and soul, she carries some of her son's cells in her body, and His resurrected body carries some of her cells. Father Curtis sermonized that the current era of scientific research has provided us with information never known before, and he marveled that we know what we know now. My mother lives! Robert Southwell, SJ, (1561-1595), English Roman Catholic priest, poet, hymnodist, and clandestine missionary in Elizabethan England. After being arrested and imprisoned in 1592 and intermittently tortured and questioned by Richard Topcliffe, Southwell was eventually tried and convicted of high treason. On Feb 21, 1595, Father Southwell was hanged at Tyburn, age 34. [Wikipedia]  The psychedelic light show on Chartres was so good (8-17), I thought you might like to see its on-going interior restoration. An older gentleman friend who is Catholic and served in the military and law enforcement told me America is finished. What he means is that we are falling out of our number one position. Am I ready to accept that? It has happened before to great empires - Greek, Roman, British. Is it our turn? The Dear Lord lets us suffer individually and as a group. He tells us to take up the cross. We will find out when we are dead and He reveals all...why this must be. Whichever way it turns out, the Man on the cross has my allegiance. A small music video tribute to my old friend. Picture taken on August 20, 2021. Sent to me by a dear friend from her house in Sebastopol, CA, 125 highway miles from me - a not-evanescing-yet Sun turned red by forest fires. The background trees reveal the amount of smoke.  |
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