Beautiful.
Indeed, beautiful. Thank you, Dr. Blosser! I loved this passage especially: 'But we have lost something that was still there at Monreale: the capacity for living-in-the-gaze, for resting in the act of seeing, for welcoming the sacred in the form and event, by contemplating them.'
There is the true meaning of participation. Truly we have lost it.
As a companion to this piece, I highly recommend Cardinal Ratzinger's "Wounded by the Arrow of Beauty", which appears in the recently published volume, On the Way to Jesus Christ.
And the only thing missing was the singing of "On Eagles' Wings". 
"And He will raise you up on eagles' wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand."
Sing along "pew peasants", it is Holy Week and they are singing our song.
Beautiful.
"And the only thing missing was the singing of 'On Eagles' Wings'."
Like a child splashing paint on a holy icon.
Jordan,
Yes indeed!!!, splashing whatever on the aging white man mentality/elitism is a great thing.
I bet you even hum the melody when you see those uplifting words.
Hear ye, hear ye!! Hum ye, hum ye !!Whistle ye, whistle ye !!!
http://www.mamarocks.com/
on_eagl...agles_wings.htm
You who dwell...(On eagles wings)
who abide in His shadow for life,
say to the Lord: 'My refuge,
my God in whom I trust!'
And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,
bear you on the breath of dawn,
make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand.
The snare of the fowler will never capture you,
and famine will bring you no fear:
under His wings your refuge,
His faithfulness your shield.
And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,
bear you on the breath of dawn,
make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand.
You need not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day;
though thousands fall about you,
near you it shall not come.
And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,
bear you on the breath of dawn,
make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand.
For to His angels He's given a command
to guard you in all of your ways'
upon their hands they will bear you up,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
And He will raise you up on eagles' wings,
bear you on the breath of dawn,
make you to shine like the sun,
and hold you in the palm of His hand.
And they will raise you up on schlockiness,
warble the unbearable,
Make you to mix your metaphors,
and drown you in a sea of tired cliches. . . .
It's almost as bad as "Hosea" . . .
RfC, sorry, but that picture looks like "He will raise you up on seagulls' wings."
Realist:
I think you missed the point. Like the Northern Europeans Guardini mentions, you seem to accept EXTERNAL participation, and egocentric participation at that.
"the aging white man mentality/elitism"
give it a break.
Joe,
I will give the aging white man elitism a break when they allow priests to marry (not just a few ex-Anglicans and ex-Lutherans) and women to become priests. Until then our Church is being controlled by a group of aging white elitists supported by another group of the said persuasion.
They'll allow women to become priests the day after they allow men to get pregnant and bear children.
Also, what is this "our Church" to which you refer? Given your rejection of most of what the Church teaches, your membership in the Catholic Church is nominal at best.
Jordan,
"of said persuasion" and stuck in "Midevil" rules and the trappings of such.
Why do you loathe God's Church?
"I will give the aging white man elitism a break when they allow priests to marry (not just a few ex-Anglicans and ex-Lutherans) and women to become priests. Until then our Church is being controlled by a group of aging white elitists..."
As a former Episcopalian, I am not sure whether to laugh or sigh at such an observation. The Anglicans allow both, and they are indeed ruled by aging white elitists. Cardinal Arinze, however, a high profile runner up for pope, hardly qualifies.
Everything you lobby for has been tried on the other side of the Tiber, and mainline Protestantism has quickly faded in vitality as a result. It is the same with the Biblical 'scholarship' that has so enchanted you in your golden years. And it all is explicitly rebuffed by the Pope--a man who has been instrumental in guiding the Church ever since Vatican II--as well as Scripture and all Tradition. But apparetnly that's no matter, since you have discovered books with footnotes and names lauded by University librarians. And so you spend your time... provoking the blogs of conservative believers? Terrific way to change the Church. Not to mention show wild disrespect for your own communion. I think Fr. O'Leary and Gene Robinson have already cleared a path for you, so you shouldn't have to break a sweat. And when you're done, we'll have a Roman Unitarian Church, with a sociological theology and the world's ugliest liturgy and architecture, not to mention the most tedious liiterature. Nice prospect.
Joe,
Au Contraire!! We will have a Church based on authentic history not embellishments. And the liturgy and architecture will be dictated by the "pew peasants" for a change and not the dictates of "white cloud thinkers" mired in the muck of the nonsense of guardian angels, pets in Heaven, apparitions, satan-possessions, forbidden books, posturing and old white man thinking.
And Chris,
I don't loathe the Church, I loathe the lies we have been told by the "authorities" of our Church.
"We will have a Church based on authentic history not embellishments."
Thanks anyway, but we've already got one.
Yup. Speaking for this pew peasant: we've already got one.
RfC,
There is another name for the so-called "aging white elitists" to whom you so contemptuously refer. They are also called "shepherds". These shepherds -- flawed human beings that they are (like Peter) -- have been given to us by Jesus Christ.
Our shepherds are not above criticism, yet to show contempt for them is a slap in Jesus' face.
Realist:
I take seriously your claim that you loathe the lies told by the authorities of our Church. Would you care to name, say, 5 or ten of your favorite lies?
Are you aware that, as a matter of historical accuracy and freedom from embellishments, THERE WAS NO PEW PEASANT DEMAND for the Mass in the vernacular, nor for multiple eucharistic prayers, nor for any number of other authoritative declarations. You should, following your own logic, refuse to accept them. Paul VI himself described his new missal as a break with tradition
Yea, verily, we can be sure that the liturgical engineers behind the Novus Ordo were not pew peasants.
A holy Triduum and a joyous Easter to you all.
To you too, TWB, and to all.
Chris,
Five lies by Church authorities? Hmmm, lies and coverups by Cardinal Law and his fellow cardinals/bishops about the priest abuse of children since at least since 1940 not only in the USA but also in Ireland and Austria. And then we have the condoning of the lies/coverups:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2...ain566978.shtml
"The policy was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.
The document, once "stored in the secret archives" of the Vatican, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship and what it calls the "worst crime": sexual assault committed by a priest" or "attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals."
Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases "in the most secretive way...restrained by a perpetual silence...and everyone {including the alleged victim) ...is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office...under the penalty of excommunication."
Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims, said, “This document is significant because it's a blueprint for deception.”
Drivon said this proves what he has alleged on behalf of victims in priest-abuse lawsuits: that the church engaged in a crime – racketeering.
“It's an instruction manual on how to deceive and how to protect pedophiles,” Drivon said. "And exactly how to avoid the truth coming out."
And one must wonder what other documents reside in the Vatican's archives?
RfC,
Do you have first-hand knowledge of the facts concerning the Ottaviani protocol? Were you an eyewitness to these events?
It seems that you are willing to expend a lot of time and energy debunking the Bible, yet you are willing to accept on blind faith anything that is reported by the secular media concerning scandals in the Church.
There are bad people in the Church. There is bad leadership in the Church. There is plenty to hate in the Church at a human level.
Yet let's be clear, Realist, why you hate the Church. It's not the scandals. It's not the (alleged) systemic cover-up operations. You hate the authorities of the Catholic Church -- and indeed the Catholic Church herself -- because the Catholic Church has firmly upheld for 2000 years the doctrine that you hate:
'In fact, the truth of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord and only Saviour, who through the event of his incarnation, death and resurrection has brought the history of salvation to fulfilment, and which has in him its fullness and centre, must be firmly believed as a constant element of the Church's faith.' (Dominus Iesus, 13)
You hate the Church, Realist, because the Church teaches that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ.
Yet the Church does not hate you, Realist. The Church loves you. Jesus loves you.
Now is the hour of our salvation. Let us keep silence -- in our hearts if not at our computer keypads. In spite of your unbelief, Realist, I wish you a blessed Good Friday.
Realist:
All you have proven is that the Church is both human and divine, which the Church's Magisterium has proclaimed for two thousand years. Congratulations. I think that makes you a traditionalist Catholic?
Oh, I take that back. You have also proven the existence of sin. Congratulations. Exactly how do your friends in the disaffected Catholics tolerate you? You accept essential proofs of the Church's constitution and her reason for being.
"The crowd sat and watched. The women were wearing veils. The colors of their garments and shawls were waiting for the sun to make them shine again. The men's faces were distinguished and handsome. Almost no one was reading. All were living in the gaze, all engaged in contemplation.
Then it it became clear to me what the foundation of real liturgical piety is: the capacity to find the "sacred" within the image and its dynamism."
Yeh, well. I am not impressed by Guardini. Maybe I should be. But I sense in his purple prose the instinct of the stage manager. No "private prayer", no reading, everyone gazing rapturously, in angelic sync. Beautiful, and yet . . . .
Then along comes Bugnini, dragging the entire church behind him like a beached whale. "Angelic sync" becomes robotic calibration. The prayer of angels becomes the hugger-mugger of self-congratulating congregants. The individual praying for his deliverance becomes the turd in the punch bowl.
Is the latter a perversion of the former, or its realization?
Undoubtedly, Ralph, Bugnini's awful reality is a perversion of Guardini.
Just stunning. Good to see the Normans borrowing the magnificent Byzantine iconic/fresco tradition--especially given how much they battled the Empire during that time.
The Church could do more to appropriate that tradition today. It's a sure antidote to the trendy sterile iconoclasm that's still far too common.
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