The change of the year

Alfred, Lord Tennyson In Memoriam Canto 105, published in 1850.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
     The flying cloud, the frosty light;
     The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
     Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
     The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
     For those that here we see no more,
     Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
     And ancient forms of party strife;
     Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
     The faithless coldness of the times;
     Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
     The civic slander and the spite;
     Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
     Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
     Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
     The larger heart the kindlier hand;
     Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Msgr Ronald Knox – using the methods that proved somebody else wrote Shakespeare – once proved that In Memoriam was in fact written by Queen Victoria in memory of Lord Melbourne. It is published in his Essays in Satire (1928).

Does the Pope have a pink bathroom?

(There was a splurge post on Pius xii in this place for a few hours this morning which will be edited and reposted later, in case you are wondering). As is now known all over the interwebs Pope Benedict xvi has written an op-ed [registration required] for the Financial Times which L'Osservatoro Romano helpfully reproduces.

At FT.com "the response of Jesus" in the first paragraph (quoting "render unto Caesar") is hyperlinked to Matthew 22 in the God's Word Translation but "the birth of Christ" at the beginning of the fifth paragraph is hyperlinked to Luke 2 in the New International Version. In both cases it is to the text hosted at BibleGateway.com. All three are Protestant institutions. This is not something to do with previous settings because those are the results when I used a browser with a cleared cache.

The following is at the bottom of the article:

The writer is the Bishop of Rome and author of ‘Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives’

Oh you mean that Pope Benedict xvi!

I imagine an Anglican subeditor having had some fun with all this, but I am sure that is just fantasy.

*The post title is a reference to the following sketch from Not the Nine O'Clock News, which I can't find on YouTube. The FT is printed on pink paper.
Reader 1 (Rowan Atkinson): I buy The Daily Telegraph, because it doesn't try to tell me what to think. It just reports the news. 
Reader 2 (Griff Rhys-Jones): I buy the Daily Express, because it informs me quickly, tells me what's going on, and let's me get on with my job. 
Reader 3 (Mel Smith): I read the Financial Times [beat] because I've got a pink bathroom.

I think they must import them on thumbdrives

When I was at Merton, at the end of every Michaelmas term (October-December), the Chaplain organised a Carol service which was usually well attended. One year I heard one of the Chapel regulars remark sadly that a lot of people came to hear and sing the old favourites – Once in Royal, Silent Night ect – only to be disappointed, because this was an Advent carol service as was appropriate, since this was long before even the Great Antiphons, much less Christmas itself.

Apparently the alma mater is keeping up the practice.
The beginning of Advent is celebrated with a particular solemnity at Merton. For its second recording the college choir explores the musical riches that adorn this most special time in the church’s year, centring on a newly commissioned sequence of Magnificat antiphons from seven leading composers.
Naturally, although I heard about this weeks ago, I did not get round to ordering the thing until this morning and so of course I missed my opportunity to have people coming out here for Christmas to bring the CD with them and save on postage.

The OU shop sells it for £14 ($21.48AUD) whereas Amazon UK charges £9.46 ($14.58AUD), both delivered free in the UK. Amazon UK will also let you download the whole thing for £6.49 ($10.01AUD), Amazon.com will give you the same privilege for $8.99 ($8.53AUD), Play.com for £7.99 ($12.32AUD). iTunes in the US offers it for $9.99 ($9.48AUD), in the UK for £7.99 ($12.32AUD) but in Australia for $16.99, i.e. £11.02 and $17.91USD. Of course this is nothing like the grossest example of price gouging on Australian iTunes.

The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, on your Mac

You can get a barebones anniversary list of events in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on your Mac. Not immediately obvious how I import it into Calendar.

Slightly more information e.g. what the "cat" command in the terminal means (I know I was dying to know) at The Mac Observer.

UPDATE: Since the above links might die this is a note at what you do. (1) On your Mac open the terminal in Applications/Utilities. (2) Type:

cat /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr.

Don't forget the space between "cat" and "/usr…"

(3) Hit return. (4) Enjoy Appendix B.

My Yoke Is Easy, My Burden Light.

From time to time I have been invited to weddings on Sundays – typically in the early afternoon – at which a Nuptial Mass is celebrated. All Catholics are obliged to attend Mass on Sundays but, by a special rule, one can fulfil one's obligation by attending Mass on Saturday evening. The propers of that Mass (readings, changeable prayers etc.) are almost always the same as those of the Sunday, even though it is on Saturday evening. Mutatis mutandis this applies for those Feasts designated "Holy Days of Obligation" ("Days of Precept" in the old terminology) which happen to fall on a weekday. In Australia such occasions are limited to Christmas Day and the Solemnity of the Assumption on August 15th.

I had always assumed that, to fulfil an obligation to hear Mass on a given day, Catholics must hear the Mass of that day. Wedding Masses have their own prayers and readings, therefore a Wedding Mass on a Sunday would not fulfil my Sunday obligation, and so I would still have to attend Mass elsewhere on Sunday morning or Saturday evening. With the children, and dressing for the wedding, and so on, this can be quite tough.

It turns out my assumption is false. Edward Peters (whom I mentioned the other day) explains things.
…a few folks who correctly remind others that there are two attendance obligations coming up seem also to assert that the type of Mass attended determines which attendance obligation can be satisfied thereat, as in, for example, a Mass of Anticipation for the Second of Advent, celebrated at 5 pm next Saturday, can only be applied toward one’s Sunday obligation, not toward Immaculate Conception. That’s an error arising from confusing the canonical obligation on people to attend Mass with the liturgical obligation on priests to celebrate the Mass called for by the rubrics. The people’s canonical obligation to attend Mass is satisfied by their “assisting at a Mass celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite on the [day required] or in the evening of the preceding day…” (c. 1248 § 2). The law says nothing about what type of Mass is celebrated, only, that it must be a Mass in a Catholic rite.
A Canon Lawyer on the Catholic Answers forum came to a different conclusion. Peters responds to his arguments (references at the link).
The Church imposes an obligation to attend Mass-on-Sunday (a phrasing I prefer because so many people take the requirement “to go to Sunday Mass” to mean “to go to Mass as celebrated on Sunday with the Sunday readings etc.”, which is to prejudice the very point in question) and recognizes the 24-hour period known as Sunday as being available for one to fulfill that obligation. In that respect, then, not only have we an obligation to attend Mass-on-Sunday, but we have a right to fulfill that obligation within a set 24-hour period. Now, just very recently in Church history, the Church has offered us the option of fulfilling our Mass-on-Sunday obligation during some hours on Saturday. We now have extra time in which to fulfill an obligation, but—and here’s the key—having the option of satisfying one’s Mass-on-Sunday obligation on a Saturday in no way deprives us of the right to fulfill our Mass-on-Sunday obligation anytime during the 24 hours of Sunday. Else, the granting of an option with one hand would be to deprive us of a right with the other. Canon law does not work that way.

Scrooge on the second Sunday of Advent

Yes, deep down, if I had the hide, this is probably me.
When someone says “Merry Christmas” even five minutes before sunset on Dec. 24, remind them that “Advent is a season of penance, fasting and prayer, to remind us of the hopeless misery of the human condition that Christ came to rectify—for those who accept Him. But the path is straight, and narrow, and few do travel it.” Then smile and say “But hey, Merry Christmas!”
This, perhaps not so much:
If you must play host to the family, insist on making this Christmas more authentic. No ham, no turkey, no stuffing—just Middle Eastern foods like roasted goat. No “secularized” Christmas carols, either: just Melkite and Maronite hymns, or (as a concession) a Gregorian chant CD of the Christmas Mass, played over and over again. Pop in a DVD of The Passion of the Christ, reminding the wee ones, “This is the reason for the season.” Then go smoke your cigar on the porch.

Mankowsi: Why the Immaculate Conception?

The truth is often at right angles to the common perception. Fr Paul Mankowski sj asks "Why the Immaculate Conception?" in Women for Faith & Family, Vol v.1 (1990).
There is a strain of feminist Mariology which feels repugnance at the dogma of the Immaculate Conception because it views the notion as demeaning to women. Orthodox theologians were so scandalized by the particularly feminine dimension of sinfulness (according to this school) that they found it necessary to cook up the idea of an immaculate conception in order to sanitize the event of the incarnation. I hope I have shown that this way of thinking has got things exactly backwards. In articulating its belief that Mary was free of original sin, the Church is thrusting the Blessed Virgin into the heart of the problematic struggle of temptation and grace; it is the opposite of insulation. It is not some angelic perfection, but her humanity which is vindicated by Pius IX’s definition - her dependence on merits of Jesus Christ, her constant reenactment of the drama of Adam’s choice, a drama which is no less dramatic for its happy ending, a drama which ultimately includes us all, in the vision of the Woman clothed with the sun, crushing the serpent at the worlds’ end.
The introduction punctures a number of balloons:
Further, if we speak of the Virgin Mary as constitutionally incapable of sin, it is all the more difficult to discover in her the humanity which is by its very weakness transparent to God's power. Consequently, in an age like our own especially, she is all the more likely to be treated as precisely that sort of Ideal which cannot warm our affections or stir our courage.
One obvious, all-too-predictable solution, is to deny the Immaculate Conception and the sinlessness of Mary, under the fatuous pretense that by doing so, she will become more "human", and so more accessible to the rest of us sinners. Wrong on all counts, the most obvious being that a human who sins is less human after he succumbs that he was before. Still, there is a persistent, though imbecile, way of speaking in which some public figure who has an adulterous affair or a personal foible come to light thereby reveals a "human side" of himself. In fact, it is in keeping his commitments and displaying evidence of virtue that a man is most fully human; in giving in to temptations, even trivial or petty ones, he becomes that much more bestial.
When we fall, we fall from a human dignity, not an angelic one; our skid may well end at a level of animal savagery, but we never "tumble down" into humanity. It was natural indeed that the Legion inside the Gerasene demoniac pleaded to be cast into swine -- not because pigs are of themselves wickeder then men, but because the elevator, so to speak, was already at that floor. There is no point, then, in exploring this avenue further. I think the way out is more direct. A friend of mine is fond of saying, "Whenever I hear the word 'dialogue', I reach for my dogma." Let us, in the same spirit, reach for our dogma and see if it has anything to say to us.

Newman's hymns updated

Once upon a time on The Daily Telegraph blog of Damian Thompson, called Holy Smoke (now folded into his current blog, same stuff, different name), which was mostly to do with Catholic matters, there was a trolling anti-Catholic commenter called Bosco. Another commenter called Eccles sprang up to poke fun at Bosco. He claimed to be Bosco's dimmer half brother. Together they caused trouble for the moderators. Eccles soon got his own blog.  In one post, Eccles interviews Cardinal Newman and gets him to update some of his works.
E: Gerontius? I suppose it's too late to give him a more with-it name? The Dream of Dave, maybe? Well, let's see how it starts:
Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways. 
E: I think the problem here, John, is that there are at least four different ideas in that verse. And later on you get very involved in sin and redemption, and all that sort of Jesus-stuff, whereas modern congregations should be singing about how happy they are.
JHN: Yes, I think I'm getting the hang of this now. Could I use the tune of "Follow me, follow me?"
When we're up in the heights, or we feel a little blue,
Oh we like to praise our holy holy Friend,
For He sorted us out, yes He did, for me and you,
So we're saved, yes we're saved, and that's the end.
Chorus: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
praise the holy holy Lord... (ad libitum)
Eccles has lots of posts on hymns, e.g. "Colours of Day", "I the Lord of Sea and Sky" ect ect.

Via Chant Café.

Not having ears to hear

In a fit of false piety (it's been known before) I decided not to post on the story of the brawl between two retired priests in Perth.

However lay canon lawyer, Edward Peters, discusses the canonical aspects of the case, which seem quite interesting.

Excuse me? Whaddya mean, you don’t like my goofy classroom hypotheticals? Would it be more believable for you if we said these two clerics were, say, tough old Aussies? Anyway, who says this is a made-up case? Just for that, I’m gonna call on you first, young man.

AP, AAP…what's the diff?

Noting clueless use  of wire feeds  by the Australian media is becoming a hobby of mine. You would at least think that when they use them, the media could at least get the name of the source right. Er…no.

Behold a clip from the email newsletter sent out by The Australian on Monday 3rd December 2012:

Two news items about the correspondence of Napoleon? One to do with the Kremlin, one in code? I have to see this.

Napoleon's Kremlin letter sold for $243K  [jpg]

Napoleon's Kremlin letter sold for $243K
From: AAP December 03, 2012 10:03AM
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
 A letter from Napoleon Bonaparte has sold at auction for ten times its estimated value at $A235,000. Source: AAP
A SECRET code letter sent by French emperor Napoleon boasting that his multinational forces would blow up Moscow's Kremlin has sold at auction for 187,500 ($A235,000) - 10 times its estimated presale price.

Napoleon's coded letter sells for $233K  [jpg]

From agencies and News Limited publications:
Napoleon's coded letter sells for $233k
From: AP December 03, 2012 5:39AM
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
A SECRET coded letter sent by French emperor Napoleon boasting that he would blow up Moscow's Kremlin has sold for 187,500 euros ($A233,000). - [sic] 10 times its estimated presale price.

Leaving aside that grubby little disclaimer ("From agencies…") which is not even text (I can't pick it up with the mouse and cursor) the stories are identical save for two things: the attribution, and the sale price. The AAP and the AP are two entirely separate organisations. The Australian Associated Press is an Australian news agency founded in 1935 by Fairfax and HWT (now owned by News Ltd). The Associated Press is an American news agency founded  in 1846 by New York Newspapers to…you can Askjeeves the rest.

The AAP is actually nearer the mark for the value of €187,500 but the subediting drone could not keep consistent between the headline and the opening paragraph. And some dimwit put both stories in the email bulletin.

(A short time on the interwebs suggests that the story belongs to the AP).