Here’s one for the Just Too Cool file.
The Benedictines in Norcia (ancient Nursia), whom I mention with some frequency here (they post their chanted monastic hours online), have inaugurated their new beer. A friend who is involved with them told me that they are aiming at a top shelf product, not your average brewsky.
Their beer site is HERE.
I note that their motto is “Ut laetificet cor“. The reference is obviously to the biblical “vinum quod laetificat cor hominis“.
Alas, you can only get it in Italy right now.
There is a nice video about the beer:
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Hopefully someday they will be able to export. Until then, we’ll just have to organize pilgrimages.
Let the New Evangelization thrive!
Beer by beer!
And let their entrepreneurship succeed! Where monastic communities do well, local populations and their markets do well.
PS: In the video when the local bishop (formerly a Vatican official who organized JPII’s trips) blesses the brewery, he actually blesses it. Thus, he is not using a text from De Benedictionibus. I must admit that events like this would be just about the only reason I would like to be a bishop.
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After watching the video, eldest son is thinking that Benedictine monasticism is looking pretty enticing… ;)
At current exchange, the price is $4.14 a 33cL bottle, or $11.00 for a 75cL! Roughly what I pay for a decent bottle of wine.
I think the Bishop is using the traditional “blessing of beer” from the Rituale Romanum (but in Italian, not Latin):
V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.
Oremus.
Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
And in English…
V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.
Let us pray.
Bless, + O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
And it is sprinkled with holy water.
I wonder if the Pope has tried it yet? I’d like to hear his opinion on how it compares to the German ones.
Aiuto! If they mean that “ut” to start a purpose clause, I hope they’re going to fix the verb: ut laetificEt cor. Good Latin and good beer go together, no?
[Good catch. However, my bad. I transcribed it incorrectly, bamboozled by the line from the psalm.]
@RomeontheRange: This time Fr.Z. got the latin wrong! Shocking indeed! ;-P It says laetificEt on the Nurcian home page.
I hope this is for sale in the U.S. soon!
What a GREAT vocations pitch for this community!
A old student of mine is very fond of this Monastery! I will have to ask him to sample some beer on his next trip to Italia, give me his impressions, and send back a case or two!
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