THOUGHTS WHILE [NOT] SHAVING!

LITURGY

Pope Benedict's desire to reinstate the old Tridentine rite for Mass has been well known for years apparently and this desire was finally turned into a command last summer. But maybe it is yet to go a stage further. Apparently as pointed out in this week's issue of the Tablet there is a letter from Benedict when he was just a Cardinal which reads,' You are asking me to act for a broader availablity of the old Roman Rite. Actually you know I have no deaf ears towards such a request. My work on behalf of this cause is generally known....One would have to reckon with considerable resistance on the part of many bishops against a general admission...I believe though that in the long term the Roman Church must again have a single Roman rite...The Roman Rite of the future should be a single rite, celebrated in the latin or the vernacular, but standing completely in the tradition of the rite that has been handed down.'

Such a move in my opinion would be a great tragedy. I consider the rite of which he speaks to be an example of the most decadent time in the history of Christian liturgy. The liturghical scholars working so carefully after the Second Vatican Council have wonderfully rediscovered and brought into use something of our most ancient tradition in a form that enables the celebration to in touch with people's lives rather than in a nostalgic leap into a spiritualised never-never land. In an earlier issue of the Tablet Professor Nicholas Lash demonstrates the real dangers of the Pope's attitude to the liturgy as does his lovely book on the Eucharist written soon after the Council. Furthermore we have the scandal now of the Prayer for the Jews in the old rite which even in its new form is an insult to Jews and is certainly contrary to the view of our relatonship with the Jews as in St. Paul's letters see especially Romans 9-11. This sets back our relationship with outr Jewish Brothers and sisters by 40 years.

LENT

Having complained about the above I must say I was pleased to read that Pope benedict said that Lent 'could be a good time to fast from words and images that constantly bombard us.' adding 'We need a bit of silence and a bit of space.'

Indeed this is true, as Master Dogen the 12th century Zen master says we need to take a backward step... but NOT to just to be silent for a bit of peace and quite but in order to come home to our own true nature prior to all our frenetic activity. We need to step back from the words and images, the thoughts and ideas in our heads simply to be in touch with what is truely real namely life itself just as it is.

PEACE

I was pleased to read an article on the 80th birthday of a good friend from the past, Bruce Kent who in a prophetic way resigned from his active ministry as a priest in order to dedicate his own life to working for the Peace of the World. My memory of him was reawakened when I read after some mention was made about minimum wage, ' Does the Church ever talk about maximum wages? It's incredible that we can draw minimum wages. Isn't there a moral issue in that? There jolly well ought to be.'