heaven and to hold fast to what endures ... The prayer does not say that we reject passing things nor does it describe things of this world in a negative light. Rather, the eucharistic bread and wine we share, these are the enduring things of heaven, the body and blood of Christ.” The Prayer over the Offerings for this


same Sunday contains another “glaring howler,” as Griffiths referred to the Prayer after Communion. The Latin text parallels our tem- poral offering with God’s gift of eternal redemption: “quod nostrae devotioni concedis effici temporali, tuae nobis fiat praemium redemptionis aeternae”. The Vatican instruction on liturgical trans- lations (Liturgiam Authenticam) instructs translators to preserve these parallels. Such a translation would read:“as the fruit of our temporal offering grant us the reward of your eternal redemption.” But the new English trans- lation says: “may what you grant us to celebrate devoutly here below, gain for us the prize of eternal redemption.” The infelicitous, indeed slightly colloquial “here below” hardly parallels “eternal”. And one should note that God has disappeared from the last line: “your eternal redemption” in Latin. As Canon Griffiths said of the Prayer after


Communion: “This prayer comes right at the beginning of the liturgical cycle. What a way to start.” I would add: how many more “glar- ing howlers” does this translation contain? Chris Grady London SW4


I was on the phone last night to my son, a teacher, who told me that he had been to Mass last week – only an occasional activity, I’m afraid. He said, “What on earth have they done to the Mass?” Of course we know what they have done. For myself, I remain quietly angry during Mass and keep my lips firmly sealed. From being a joyful experience it has become almost unpleasant. Certainly one not to experi ence daily as I was wont to do. However, I now understand the pain felt by those who loved the old Tridentine Rite. Surely it could be possible for the “discontents” like me to receive from the local bishop through a sympathetic priest permission to use the form as it was, before it was meddled with? After all, the Latin Mass folk did. Andrew Bebb Liverpool


Experiences of Opus Dei Jack Valero of Opus Dei alleges (Letters, 5 November) that I “rehash baseless myths” about his organisation’s treatment of young people and their families. But my knowledge of Opus in Europe and the western hemisphere stems not from “baseless myths” about its practices in Peru but started from my own agonising experience as a teenager


For more of your correspondence, go to the new Letters Extra section of The Tablet’s expanded website: www.thetablet.co.uk


18 | THE TABLET | 12 November 2011


60 years ago in Hampstead, London. There, I was invited to join the organisation but to keep that secret from my ailing parents: had I done so, I would have sharply increased the unhappiness of their marriage already under very considerable strain. Hugh O’Shaughnessy London N1


Flying fish Notebook (5 November) carried another item about the intransigence of Westminster Archdiocese over abstaining from meat on Fridays. Those of us who are golden oldies and who can remember the pre-Vatican II days when the second commandment of the Church was observed also know that travellers were dispensed from abstaining. Not only that, but the British Airways flight


from Tel Aviv to London will not be over England and Wales when a meal will be served – the remit of the English and Welsh hierarchy only starts at Dover. The British Airways passengers are exempt from abstain- ing on two grounds – travelling and being outside the remit of the English and Welsh hierarchy until they cross the English Channel.


During the Second World War, those who


worked in London, Liverpool and York would happily cross the Rivers Thames, Mersey and Ouse on a Friday carrying their meat sandwiches for lunch to eat them in the neighbouring diocese where the remit of the diocese in which they worked did not apply. Do the countries over which the British Airways flight from Tel Aviv to London will fly still observe the second commandment of the Church? For this reason, Archbishop Nichols when he was attending the meeting of the European hierarchies in Albania could have eaten meat in Albania without causing a contretemps.


It is interesting that in the catechesis on the


revision of Friday abstinence, the English and Welsh hierarchy has mentioned nothing about the above two exceptions. Do they no longer apply? If so, should not the golden oldies be reminded? (Fr) Gordon Beattie OSB Parbold, Lancashire


Crucial caveat


I agree with the overarching thought of William Keegan, (“Capitalists at bay”, 29 October), that the untrammelled greed of a significant number of key players in the inter- national banking and economic sectors is an important contributing factor to the present financial woes of the millions of hardwork- ing employed, the unemployed and the under-employed.


Keegan cites the concern of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace about the global influence of utilitarian thinking, namely, the principle of Bentham, “the great- est good for the greatest number”, but Keegan omits the caveat of Bentham, “minus pain”. Herein, is the sin of the greedy bankers and economists. (Fr) Stephen Giles MHM Kroonstad, South Africa


The living Spirit


Winter and the geese circle the fields in hunching skeins,


Everything asleep and buried, secret, Waiting for some silent voice to waken them once more.


There among the trees, low above the ground,


The sun struggles to break through, Pale as a daffodil, frail and failing.


To keep believing is not easy, even in December


With the child’s clutter of star and donkey, gift and manger.


The dark comes back, the long dark


Searching lost through the fields. The night Starless and empty, just rivers full of gibberish,


The morning hopeless, a grey sky low over a grey earth.


So was it just a story written long ago Lost in the telling? Yet why then did they carry it With such fire, dying to lions and the torment


Of wheels and spikes? Why if all of it Was nothing more than stories? Will not Christ return?


Two thousand years have come and gone Yet will it happen on some late November night,


A light among the trees when all the fields are flooded;


Something to go and seek and find Alone, that happens just to those Who leave everything they have behind? Kenneth Steven “Believing”


Evensong (SPCK, 2011)


“A friend”, says the Wise Man, “is the medi - cine of life.” Excellent, indeed, is that saying. For medicine is not powerful or more efficacious for our wounds in all our tem- poral needs than the possession of a friend who meets every misfortune joyfully, so that, as the Apostle says, shoulder to shoul- der, they bear one another’s burdens. Aelred of Rievaulx The Assurance of Hope (Continuum, 2006)


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40