What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

I made a really fast podcast today, inspired by a couple paragraphs coming before the excerpt of Augustine’s en. ps. 140 in today’s second reading for the Office of Readings. 

In this podcast I read in English for a change, not Latin and I talk about the different ways Christ speak in Scripture while comparing them with what happens at Mass and how a church building reflects the same model. 

Since I was working really really fast today, I had a slip of the tongue here and there, but nothing too profound.

Enjoy!

 

 07_03_06 Augustine on Ps 140 [14:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

From the Sala Stampa:

The Post-Synodal Exhortation is being released on 13 March.  Be sure that I will be at the Press Conference.

AVVISO DI CONFERENZA STAMPA

Si informano i giornalisti accreditati che martedì 13 marzo 2007, alle ore 11.30, nell’Aula Giovanni Paolo II della Sala Stampa della Santa Sede, avrà luogo la Conferenza Stampa di presentazione dell’Esortazione Apostolica Postsinodale del Santo Padre Benedetto XVI "Sacramentum Caritatis" sull’Eucaristia fonte e culmine della vita e della missione della Chiesa.

Interverranno:

 Em.mo Card. Angelo Scola, Patriarca di Venezia, Relatore Generale all’XI Assemblea Generale Ordinaria del Sinodo dei Vescovi;

 S.E. Mons. Nikola Eterović, Segretario Generale del Sinodo dei Vescovi.

(Il Documento è da considerarsi sotto embargo fino alle ore 12.00 di martedì 13 marzo 2007.

Today I was strolling and found the Church S. Maria della Pace open.  "Miracolo!", quoth I and entered.  It is a gem.  Standing before the church’s main altar I saw a picnic table pushed to the side of the sanctuary.  What really got my attention, however, were a couple of young people looking at the sanctuary and talking about how beautiful it was.  I heard one say, "Imagine, for Mass they put that nasty table (tavolaccia) in front of that!"  They were all properly disgusted with the idea.  The moral of the story?  What the aging hippies think they need to do to engage "the people", "the people" don’t want.  And today younger people, who are not hauling around the baggage of the ‘60’s don’t want what the hep-cats have pushed on us for years. 

But times are changing rapidly.  I think we will see more and more younger priests ridding their churches of iron-boards and re-orienting the Mass once again.  We are getting constant hints that this is path of the future.  I am guessing the Holy Father might even talk more about this in a document.

I also tip my biretta to the Whappers for these photos of the Holy Father’s chapel in the Apostolic Palace.  Notice the before and after differences.

2003

2007

 

This is just in from Xinhua:

THE strongest March snowstorm to hit northeast China’s Liaoning Province in 56 years has left at least one person dead and seven injured after the roof of an agricultural trade building collapsed under the weight of the snow, local sources said. ... Beginning Saturday night, rain and snow has fallen continually in most parts of Liaoning, with reported precipitations of 36 millimeters in Shenyang, 56mm in Dalian and 68mm in Dandong, the Shenyang Meteorological Observatory reported.

Snow piled up two meters high in some areas, it said.  ... The city reported 25 to 32 millimeters of rain and snow by yesterday morning.

In Erdos city in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which saw a blizzard on Saturday with a maximum snowfall of up to 20 centimeters, about 40,000 passengers and 10,000 drivers were stranded.

We continue our Lenten journey through the prayers of Holy Mass with today’s

SUPER OBLATA:
Sanctificationem tuam nobis, Domine,
his mysteriis operare placatus,
quae nos et a vitiis terrenis emundet,
et ad caelestia dona perducat.

LITERAL VERSION:
Having been appeased, O Lord, by these sacramental mysteries
work within us your sanctification
which might both cleanse us from earthly faults
and lead us to heavenly gifts.