Dob-log

Proportional Representation Petition

2017-03-08T18:59:00.001+00:00

Hi,

I’ve decided to take to the soapbox because of a petition that’s running: ‘To make votes matter, adopt Proportional Representation for UK General Elections’. If it gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament and “petitions which reach 100,000 signatures are almost always debated.” It’s reached 90% of that with less than a month to go, after being pushed by Make Votes Matter (it was started by Tim Ivorson, one of their team), the Electoral Reform Society, Compass and Unlock Democracy among others, including some of the smaller parties whose voice can be more or less ignored under FPTP.

(There’s also an early day motion on the voting system for general elections.)

Since the petition reached 10,000 signatures quite some time ago, it has already received a government response. That weaselly, perfunctory response alone is, in my view, justification for taking it forward for parliamentary debate.

Our FPTP voting system makes Parliament unrepresentative. One party got 37% of the vote and 51% of seats, while 3 parties got 24% of the vote but share 1.5% of seats. FPTP violates the democratic principle of majority rule and causes problems like costly policy reversals.

The government response completely fails to address any of this. The Tories didn’t so much win a general election as come out of it as the highest-scoring losers: the majority is not in control. 24% of the vote being downgraded to 1.5% of seats is bad enough: who knows what share of the vote those smaller parties would have if the electoral system didn’t punish voters by making sure that in many constituencies their genuine preferences can have no effect whatsoever on the result? No response unless you count this:

First Past The Post (FPTP) is a robust method of electing MPs.

Robust, eh? Well, what does that mean precisely? If it means ‘strong’, who gives a crap? Is it fair? Is it democratic?

The UK has never had a say on PR. As David Cameron himself said, the AV Referendum was on a system that is often less proportional than FPTP, so the rejection of AV could not possibly be a rejection of PR. In fact, so few voters wanted either system on offer that the turnout was just 42%.

A referendum on changing the voting system was held in 2011 and the public voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the FPTP system.
[…]
At the voting system referendum in May 2011, electors were asked whether the Alternative Vote system (AV) should be used instead of the First Past the Post system for electing members of the House of Commons. The referendum produced a clear result with over 13 million voters rejecting the option for change to move away from the First Past the Post system, compared to over 6 million voters who voted for change.

67.90% of just 42% (so 28.51%) is overwhelming apparently. We can at the least say that this is debatable. And I think we can say that responding to an assertion with a bland counter-assertion of this kind shows a distinct lack of class/literacy. Of course, the only thing rejected was a specific voting system, one which isn’t proportional, the subject of this petition - making this a pretty fucking disingenuous response.

The Government’s manifesto made a commitment to respect the will of the British people as expressed in the 2011 UK Parliamentary elections voting system referendum and keep the First Past the Post system for elections to the House of Commons. The Government, therefore, has no plans to change the voting system for elections to the House of Commons.

And in the absence of any real argument that the 2011 was decisive, or indeed actually had anything to do with PR - the subject of the petition, let’s not forget - this amounts to so much waffle, the “will of the British people” not so much exalted as cheapened.

There are tried and tested PR systems that keep the constituency link. They would make every vote matter equally, rather than allowing a minority of swing voters in a few marginal seats to pick the government.

The Government is concerned that proportional voting systems would weaken the direct constituency link which is a key feature of our Parliamentary system.

Assertion meets bland counter-assertion again. Pathetic. Other key features of our parliamentary system are tactical voting or wasted votes, safe seats where parties know they don’t need to try and under-representation of parties with significant national support: it wants looking at, not veneration. Besides, constituency boundaries are administrative - there’s nothing sacrosanct about them - so if there’s a case for more intelligent local representation (there is), I think we can afford to hear it.

Under a proportional system the voting process is more complicated for the voter.

In the case of STV, for example, you rank your candidates in order of preference. Are you too stupid to do that? Me neither, but the government is perfectly happy to patronise us like this. If you think a significant number of other people are too stupid to do that, I would suggest you are underestimating the intelligence of the public. It can be hard to place much faith in the intelligence of the public, granted, but putting names in order - really?

The Government’s view is that the First Past the Post voting system is the best system for elections to the House of Commons. The system is well established and understood by voters and provides a clear link between constituents and their representatives in Parliament. More often than not, it results in a government with a working majority in Parliament making decisive government possible.

This is all they can find to say in favour of FPTP? Also pathetic. Well established just means we’ve always done it that way, which is a stupid reason to carry on with anything that might be improved upon. Well understood and clear constituency link are at least points in its favour at least, but it’s a little underwhelming if you consider all the problems that it causes. The wording of the petition right at the starts attempts to summarise the many flaws of FPTP, and this is no response at all in light of that.

Is mostly providing a working majority a good criterion for an electoral system? Dictatorships result in working majorities with even greater regularity. Should we try one of them? You know, for the most direct democracy possible?

It was my intention to add some of my own thoughts about the need for PR and the merits of the system favoured by the Electoral Reform Society, but with less than a month before the petition ends, it’s probably best to publish this criticism of the response now and write the rest later.

Tim Ivorson already wrote his own response to the government response to his petition at the end of January.

Cruciverba Criptici

2016-08-15T10:57:00.000+01:00

I finished this draft some time ago, and I tried to get some help with it a few times without much luck, so rather than just leave it languishing on my computer, here it is, warts and all.

Al momento, mi sto cimentando con la cultura britannica ovvero il cruciverba. È chiaro che anche gli italiani conoscono il cruciverba, ma nel Regno Unito ha avuto uno sviluppo particolare, che rimane principalmente un fenomeno britannico. Le soluzioni non derivano da una definizione sola (noi chiamiamo questo tipo di cruciverba "quick crosswords"), ma ogni clue ne ha due, una normale e una criptica, un gioco di parole insomma. Da noi questo sistema ebbe un gran successo, venne considerato la forma standard del cruciverba e divenne un passatempo nazionale.

Come funzionano

Prendiamo come esempio il clue seguente:

US port strangely in a state of inertia (6 lettere)

La definizione sembra una frase ma non lo è. I clue sembrano di aver sempre un senso che non ha niente a che fare con la soluzione, questo fa parte del gioco.

Qui di seguito, in sintesi, è ciò che ci dovrebbe essere in un clue criptico:

una definizione precisa
un indizio aggiuntivo ragionevole
niente in più

In pratica, non è sempre così, ma in linea di massima è bene saperlo. La definizione classica di regola si trova o all'inizio o alla fine. Per risolvere il , bisogna identificare gli elementi aiutandosi con i diversi indizi che ci sono.

In questo caso, l'indizio è la parola “strangely”, esempio di una delle tante espressioni che possono indicare la presenza di un anagramma. Ce ne sono tante, in effetti l’unico limite è la fantasia del cruciverbista. Altri esempi sono wild, unlikely, disordered. Visto quello, è facile vedere che ci sono 6 lettere in “US port” e solo leggermente più difficile vedere a quel punto che la soluzione è stupor: anagramma di ‘usport’ diventando una condizione di immobilità.

È chiaro che ci vuole uno sforzo in più rispetto al riempire un cruciverba usando una definizione standard, ma in un certo senso, può anche essere più facile. Mentre una definizione standard spesso può avere più soluzioni, per cui bisogna guardare lettere già inserite, un cryptic clue ti porta sempre alla soluzione in due modi: di solito quando è risolto, è ben chiaro. Poi, aiutano molto i clue già risolti in ogni caso.

Altri tipi d'indizio

L’anagramma è spesso visto come il classico indizio aggiuntivo, ma per ottenere un gioco più appagante vengono usati altri espedienti. Rubo qualche esempio da Wikipedia, ecc.

Sciarada

Esempio: Outlaw leader managing money (7)

Outlaw sembra un sostantivo che funge da aggettivo. Va letto invece come il verbo ban, e poi unito con un re come leader, king. Per cui la riposta è banking.

Contenitore

Esempio: Matured during attempt to produce Hamlet, for example (7)

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 824)

In questo caso during indica la presenza di un contenitore, cioe' una parola che ne contiene un'altra. Se pensiamo a sinonimi di matured e attempt troviamo aged e try, unendoli otteniamo tragedy, di cui Amleto è un ottimo esempio.

Wikipedia dà altri esempi di parole utilizzate nello stesso modo: "inside", "over", "around", "about", "clutching", "enters", e simili.

Depennamento

Esempio: Challenging sweetheart heartlessly (6)

Una sweetheart è una darling. Se la valutiamo heartlessly, togliamo la L centrale per ottenere daring.

Questa non mi piace più di tanto: daring e challenging non le vedo proprio come sinonimi, ma va bene per un esempio. Comunque, per togliere l’inizio di una parola, potremmo vedere “beheaded”, “don’t start”, “topless”, e “after the first”. Per la fine invece, “endlessly”, “nearly”, "unfinished".

Definizione doppia

Queste non seguono le solite regole. Esempio:

Free newspaper (11)

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 833)

Non si riferisce ad un giornale gratis, ma free viene inteso nel senso di libero ed indica anche un giornale: independent. In questi casi non c’è un indizio aggiuntivo, è più intuitivo.

Parole nascoste

Esempio: Language of Monsieur Dupont (4)

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 833)

In Monsieur Dupont si trova la lingua urdu.

Lettere iniziali

Esempio: Be unsuccessful in fighting against insurgency leaders, initially (4)

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 833)

Con initially è chiarissimo (fin troppo facile di solito, infatti): la soluzione si ottiene con le lettere iniziali di, in questo caso “fighting against insurgency leaders”, fail – to be unsuccessful.

Meno prevedibili sarebbero state "firstly" e "to start".

Lettere pari/dispari

Esempio: Diehards seen at every other Middle Eastern tourist spot (4,3)

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 825)

Every other ci dice di guardare una lettera sì e una lettera no in “Diehards seen at”: la meta turistica del Medio Oriente è il dead sea. In inglese, “odd” e “even” possono indicare questo tipo di indizio, ma hanno anche significati diversi, quindi è abbastanza facile nasconderle. Si vede anche “regularly”.

Inversione

Esempio: Refrain from raising large amounts (4) - verticale

(Guardian Quiptic crossword No 833)

Questo clue ha senso solo perchè è verticale. Facciamo salire large amounts, “pots” (un sacco, tipo), scrivendola dal basso. Leggendo come si deve, dall’alto, abbiamo stop per ‘smettere’.

Altre parole indicatrici, secondo Wikipedia, sono: "returned", "receding", "in the mirror", "going the wrong way", "returns", "reverses" "to the left" o "left" (orizzontale), e "rising", "overturned" o "mounted" o "comes up" (verticali).

Definizione enigmatica

Esempio: One suffering from lack of balance (8)

(DT [Daily Telegraph, credo] 25852)

Non si riferisce all'aver perso l’equilibrio, ma all'avere grandi problemi di bilancio: è bankrupt.

Omofono

Esempio: We hear twins shave (4)

Credo che l’Inglese si presti meglio a questo tipo di indizio. In questo caso la soluzione e' pare sinonimo di shave,che in inglese significa limare ed e' omofono di pair che invece significa coppia. I gemelli sono una coppia, quindi quando sentiamo la parola twins sentiamo anche pair.

Spesso si ricorre alla figura del cockney per dire che la H non va pronunciata, visto che la caduta dell'H è tipica della loro parlata. Non so se sia possibile fare una cosa simile con i dialetti italiani.

Spoonerism

Spoonerism, da Revd W. A. Spooner, che aveva la fama di scambiare i suoni di due parole per formarne altre, con effetto comico.

Esempio: He will casually put down Spooner's angry bear (9)

Sono indizi rari, in cui il nome Spooner viene quasi sempre nominato, come sopra. Angry diventa bitter, e bear diventa lug (non ‘orso’, ma ‘trascinare’). Scambiando le consonanti diventa litterbug, uno che butta i rifiuti a terra.

&lett. / tutto compreso

Non è veramente un tipo di indizio, ma una certa forma di clue intera.

Esempio: Spoil vote! (4)

Spesso, non sempre, questo tipo di clue è segnalato con un punto esclamativo. Tutta la “frase” è sia definizione che indizio. Roviniamo (spoil) vote per ottenere veto, che sarebbe un modo per rovinare un voto.

Combinazioni e pezzetti

Di solito non c’è un solo indizio per clue, spesso si mescolano insieme.

Esempio: He doesn’t believe in organised life to accommodate daughter (7)

‘In’ + anagramma di ‘life’ che contiene la D come abbreviazione per ‘daughter’: infidel.

E' impossibile fare un elenco esaustivo di abbreviazioni. A parte le più ovvie, per esempio, potremmo trovare un ‘punto’ che sta per ‘punto cardinale’ North (N), East (E), South (S), West (W). O omofoni tipo ‘ci’ = C, o scherzi visivi, tipo ‘occhiali’ = OO. Man mano ci si abitua alla lingua consolidata dei cruciverba criptici.

C’è anche l' abitudine di prendere in prestito elementi da altre lingue: ‘the Italian’ (in realtà,da noi si usa di più ‘French’, come lingua più nota) potrebbe indicare ‘il’, ‘la’, ‘lo’, ecc. Viene usato anche il sistema di numerazione romano: di regola le cifre che vediamo andrebbero tradotte in C, V, I, ecc.

Equivocazione

Oltre il fatto che i clue di regola hanno la forma di una frase con un senso compiuto, che non è importante per la risoluzione, i cruciverbisti spesso cercano di creare ulteriore confusione per mascherare la soluzione. Di solito andrebbe anche ignorata la punteggiatura spesso fuorviante, a parte poche eccezioni, si può usare infatti per creare una frase più scorrevole che cammuffi un verbo da sostantivo.

Un altro esempio classico sarebbe la parola flower, che si legge subito come ‘fiore’, soprattutto se in una frase che apparentemente parla di giardinaggio o simile. Invece, spesso sta per ‘fiume’, visto che flow vuol dire anche ‘scorrere’, e flower così diventa ‘cosa che scorre’. O una di quelle parole che quasi sempre vuol dire “qui c’è un anagramma” e per aggiunta sta accanto al numero di lettere giusto, questa volta fa parte di un altro tipo di indizio.

Come dicevo prima, le parole che segnalano l’indizio aggiuntivo non sono limitate a quelle riportate. Certo ci sono quelle che ricorrono, e dopo un po’ risulta abbastanza chiaro, ma non sarà sempre così.

Dove iniziare

In generale i cryptic più facile si trovano nel Telegraph, quindi quest' anno ho cominciato da lì. I loro cruciverba online non sono gratis, ma registrandosi al sito si possono avere un certo numero di cruciverba gratis. Così quest’anno mi sono registrato e ho tentato di risolverli. In tanti casi, anche dopo aver visto che non andavo più avanti con uno - è normale, uno non sa come fare da subito; io finora non ho finito un singolo cruciverba da solo, però mi sono divertito lo stesso - e aver visto una soluzione, non capivo lo stesso com’è che era quella giusta, per cui ho chiesto una mano a mio babbo, che gioca invece da anni. In effetti, bisogna fare così, occorre farsi una cultura propria. Devo dire che nonostante quelli del Telegraph siano i cruciverba più facili, a volte non ero molto sodisfatto, perchè i clue non mi convincevano tanto. Ogni giornale ha uno stile proprio a cui uno si abitua dopo un po’.

Molti dei miei esempi vengono dalla Guardian Quiptic, una serie che dovrebbe servire come introduzione per principianti e per chi ha fretta. Credo che mi piaccia di più, anche se all’inizio mi sembrava più difficile, inoltre è anche gratis. Quindi per il momento vado avanti così. In più è una serie trattata a Fifteensquared, un sito che dà soluzioni ai cruciverba insieme con le spiegazioni, essenziali per un principiante come me.

Ho scritto questa guida in italiano perché mi sembra che questo tipo di cruciverba sia poco noto in Italia, e spero possa interessare a qualcuno. Ovviamente i cruciverba crittografati sono tutta un’altra cosa.

Mi pare di capire che il cruciverba più difficile del mondo di Ennio Peres potrebbe avere qualcosa – forse molto – in comune con i cryptic britannici, ma l’ho visto più volte considerato come una tortura che un gioco appagante. Tempo fa avevo scoperto che la Settimana Enigmistica ha proposto una volta dei cryptic che però non volevano essere un calco di quelli inglesi. Sembrava che piacessero, ma non so se li hanno riproposti dopo quel primo tentativo.

English hymn MP3s

2016-06-22T18:19:00.000+01:00

I’ve decided to spend some of my birthday money on some MP3s of English hymns: aside from the fact that I don’t get to hear or sing them at mass since I’m here (though some hymn tunes we know do get used here), even if I did I’d have to deal with a widespread Catholic indifference to congregational singing, something I’ve always found odd.

Anyway, I slightly exceeded a budget of €12 to get the following; I think I did alright!

Vancouver Bach Choir:

• All People That on Earth Do Dwell (Psalm 100 trans. Kethe, Old 100th - Bourgeois

arr. Vaughan Williams)

A bargain that one, considering it’s VW’s one and the sample sounded fine to me.

Huddersfield Choral Society:

• And can it be (Wesley, Sagina)

• Love divine, all loves excelling (Wesley, Blaenwern - Rowlands)

• Crown him with many crowns (Bridges & Thring insp. Rev 19:12, Diademata - Elvey)

• Guide me, O thou great Jehovah (Williams, Cwm Rhondda - Hughes)

• Hallelujah! Sing to Jesus (Dix, Hyfrydol - Prichard)

• Be thou my vision (trad. trans. Hull, Slane: a(n Irish folk) tune we use for Night Prayer with Noemi)

Well represented because Huddersfield also do good value for money.

Choir Of King's College:

• Praise to the Lord (Neander trans. Winkworth, Lobe den Herren: another one for Night Prayer, with an Italian version)

• When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (Watts, Rockingham arr. Miller)

• Let all mortal flesh keep silence (from Liturgy of St James insp. Hab 2:20 trans. Moultrie, Picardy - from a French carol arr. Vaughan Williams (– with any luck))

Can’t complain about King's, can you?

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles:

• God of Mercy and Compassion (Vaughan, Pergolesi)

Some proper miserable-looking words, by an English Redemptorist priest apparently, but I have a soft spot for this one after singing it in Lent at Sacred Heart.

Backing it up are:

• Now the Green Blade Riseth

• The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended

• Holy Jesu, by thy Passion (another Sacred Heart Lent one, part of Stainer’s ‘The Crucifixion’, which Stainer called “rubbish”)

• Just as I Am, Without One Plea

• Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me
…which I happen to have on CD already. I don’t really know the last two very well actually, called “well-known” and “popular” respectively by Wikipedia, but since they’re there...

Psalm Tones for Night Prayer: Psalm 85(86) - Tone II

2016-05-11T05:33:00.000+01:00

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. - 2 Cor 1:3–4

Apparently it was about 4 years ago that we were “getting there”, with the penultimate psalm tone that the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood deemed appropriate for the psalms and canticles of night prayer. Ho ho. I didn’t stop singing night prayer with Noemi, but having committed two psalms to memory, one slipped out of it, and I struggled to get the third in, so I needed a rethink.

I investigated strategies for commiting verbatim texts to memory, and found one or two things. I’ve used the idea and tool here extensively. In this case, rather than use them to actually memorise all the psalms I need, I just use it as a concise reminder for the psalms and scripure readings: that way I can fit what I struggle to remember for night prayer on two sides of A4 and turn the light off after the scripture reading – Jurassic Park.

So here’s the table again, and now I’m doing the last tone.

Day	Tone	Tone for 2nd Psalm	Nunc Dimittis
Sunday 1	VIII	VIII	III At last, all-powerful Master...
Sunday 2	VIII He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High...		III
Monday	II Turn your ear, O Lord, and give answer...		III
Tuesday	VIII		III
Wednesday	I	VIII	III
Thursday	I Preserve me, God, I take refuge in you.		III
Friday	V Lord my God, I call for help by day;		III

So that’s tone II, another one that only comes in one version. Now, it’s been a while: you could look back at the first post in the series for a complete explanation, or perhaps the last tone I posted for a very superficial reminder.

Marking some of the words up for the final stresses that we need:

Turn your ear, O Lord, and give ánswer*
for I am poor and néedy.
Preserve my life, for I am fáithful:*
save the servant who trusts in yóu.

You are my God; have mercy on me, Lórd,*
for I cry to you all day lóng.
Give joy to your servant, O Lórd,*
for to you I lift up my sóul.

O give your strength to your sérvant*
and save your handmaid's són.
Show me a sign of your fávour†
that my foes may see to their sháme*
that you console me and give me your hélp.

My example MP3, and all the MP3s, is here, and this is a one-page PDF summary of all the tones.

And … that's it. I had talked about doing the others tones to make up all eight, but at this point I think not!

Anglican Chant: Psalm 103

2016-01-09T21:49:00.000+00:00

Single Anglican chant in D by J. Jones, Public Domain - midi
From 'Psalter & Canticles with Appropriate Chants', ed. J. Turle 1865

Sacred Heart

VII

XXIV

VIII

VII Easter*

III Lent

VII

L’amore del Sig | nore | è per | sempre.

Il Signore è | buono e | grande nell'a | more.

Il Signore è buono e grande nell'amore.

Benedetto il Sig | nore nell' | alto dei | cieli.

Il Signore ha piet | à del | suo | popolo.

Il Signore è buono e grande nell'amore.

1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8+10

1-2, 3-4, 8+10, 12-13

1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

1-2, 3-4, 8+10, 12-13

1-2, 11-12, 19-20

1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8+11

1-2, 3-4, 8+10, 12-13

Single Anglican chant in D by J. Alcock, Public Domain - midi
From 'Psalter & Canticles with Appropriate Chants' for Psalm 103, ed. J. Turle 1865

*When not replaced by Ascension.

Now, you may be wondering what all of this is supposed to mean. It's like this: I was thinking back to my time at Sacred Heart in Exeter, and how we used to sing the Psalm in four-part harmony every week - it was great. The organist, Tegywn, had effectively put together an entire church Psalter. That's quite a feat, but he wasn't mental: he did it using Anglican chant, which is designed to simplify this sort of thing. And since they're old, you can find some helpful free resources on line. I found the ones I'm using in this Catholic music forum. The tricky thing, Teg said, was finding pieces in the right key to match the responses.

The [gradual or responsorial psalm] after the lessons [...] has a special importance among the songs of the Proper. By its very nature, it forms part of the Liturgy, of the Word. - Musicam Sacram, Vatican II

I decided to look at the Lectionary to work out how much effort you'd need to put in to get going with such a thing. With the help of this site, I've found that if you concentrate on the eleven most frequently used Psalms for Sundays and major feasts, you end up covering something like 25% of them (it would be a bit more in a parish which used all the Psalms for the Easter Vigil). So I thought I'd make a start.

There's more than one school of thought on how to do Anglican chant unfortunately, but basing myself on the simplified explanation currently on Wikipedia, the following is mine.

The note durations aren't what they might seem: the rhythm is instead based on speech. In particular, the semibreves at the start and after the double bar line are reciting notes i.e. the words are chanted rhythmically according to the natural cadence. When you get to a | symbol, you chant the following words to the notes in the next bar. If there are two or more notes, the first note is used up until the last syllable (unless indicated otherwise). The : symbol in the text corresponds to the double bar line. I've underlined the parts where the last notes are to be sung to more than one syllable. In practice, it's easier to follow a natural rhythm on the reciting notes, but an effort should be made to maintain the principle for the varied notes that follow.

This is easier than it may appear. Rough example: soprano part, v. 10-11. The midi files I made (links in image captions) give an idea of idea of how it sounds overall, but are pretty useless and misleading in terms of timing.

The pointing of the Italian is mine, based for the most part on the stresses in the text. Since I'm English, it may be necessary to improve it, but I think it's ok for a start. The chant for the strophes is simply one of the ones suggested by Turle in 'The Psalter and Canticles with Appropriate Chants', but, as Teg before me, I had to work a little harder for the response, not much though: it's the first other single chant in D found in the index at the start. I've put the whole thing - since one of the good things about Anglican chants is that it should be possible, theoretically to use them with any Psalm you like - but I've only pointed the responses for use with the second half, after the double bar line. This seems sort of okayish to me. Since I'm not a musician, it'll have to do. With just the soprano line it seems fine to me; in fact I think we always sang the soprano part in unison for the response at Sacred Heart - perhaps this is why.

Just in case the information at the top isn't clear, I'll spell it out here: the first column is the specific Mass, grouped by liturgical year, then there's the text of the response (pointed at least the first time) and then the Psalm verses used.

Yoga

2015-06-17T14:33:00.000+01:00

The ever more frequent contact with other religions and with their different styles and methods of prayer has, in recent decades, led many of the faithful to ask themselves what value non-Christian forms of meditation might have for Christians. Above all, the question concerns eastern methods.¹ Some people today turn to these methods for therapeutic reasons.
[…]
1. The expression "eastern methods" is used to refer to methods which are inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism, such as "Zen," "Transcendental Meditation" or "Yoga." Thus it indicates methods of meditation of the non-Christian Far East.

- Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation

I’ve been intrigued by “eastern methods” for a while, myself; I was before I came into the Catholic Church. Way back, I decided it was best to err on the side of caution and leave it on the side. I haven’t really changed my mind since then, but I’ve been looking into such things again in light of the aforementioned therapeutic reasons, so I thought I might blog on it.

There’s a programme I’ve looked into put together by psychologists but based on eastern methods; mostly meditation, but a bit of yoga too. Here, the yoga is used not purely as physical exercise, but for meditation, to practise awareness of the body, especially discomfort. Yoga’s linked to Hinduism, but its precise origins aren’t so clear. Taken as it comes, with all of its philosophy and spirituality, it’s really obviously incompatible with Christianity, leaving the slightly knottier question of whether it’s ok to do the physical bit with a polite “No, thank you” to the rest. The programme doesn’t include the use of any mantras, so I wasn’t considering that.

The first thing to say is that you will search in vain for an outright condemnation of, or ban on, yoga at an official level (plenty of people confuse statements by Bishops with “the Church” though). Two of the most relevant documents from the Church are the above Aspects of Christian Meditation and Jesus Christ, the bearer of the Water of Life: a Christian reflection on the “New Age”. I haven’t read the second, but I have read the first, which I was pleased to discover was written by a certain Joseph Card. Ratzinger in 1989. It says:

The majority of the great religions which have sought union with God in prayer have also pointed out ways to achieve it. Just as "the Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions,"* neither should these ways be rejected out of hand simply because they are not Christian. On the contrary, one can take from them what is useful so long as the Christian conception of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured.

* The citation from Nostra Aetate continues as follows: “She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.”

Much of the letter deals with the Christian conception of prayer and way of prayer, and with potential errors and dangers. With yoga specifically, probably the most relevant part is ‘Psychological-Corporal Methods’. This warns against a symbolic awareness of the body that “can degenerate into a cult of the body and can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as spiritual experiences” and taking mere feelings “for the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit [as] a totally erroneous way of conceiving the spiritual life”. Here too, however, the conclusion is very open:

That does not mean that genuine practices of meditation which come from the Christian East and from the great non-Christian religions, which prove attractive to the man of today who is divided and disoriented, cannot constitute a suitable means of helping the person who prays to come before God with an interior peace, even in the midst of external pressures.

Previously, too, with regard to the method of prayer, attention to self and the creation is discussed, with balance:

The emptiness which God requires is that of the renunciation of personal selfishness, not necessarily that of the renunciation of those created things which he has given us and among which he has placed us. There is no doubt that in prayer one should concentrate entirely on God and as far as possible exclude the things of this world which bind us to our selfishness. On this topic St. Augustine is an excellent teacher: if you want to find God, he says, abandon the exterior world and re-enter into yourself. However, he continues, do not remain in yourself, but go beyond yourself because you are not God: He is deeper and greater than you. "I look for his substance in my soul and I do not find it; I have however meditated on the search for God and, reaching out to him, through created things, I have sought to know 'the invisible perfections of God' (Rom 1:20)." "To remain in oneself": this is the real danger.

In January, Pope Francis mentioned yoga merely in passing, in the same breath as catechesis, in fact. He didn’t seem to feel it needed condemning. A 1997 Lineamenta of the The Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Oceania talks about yoga as a form of self-improvement and seems to say that it has “acceptable forms”. Blessed Mother Teresa apparently enthused over the work of a priest teaching yoga as a means to delay the onset of AIDS and offered him a building to expand his work; you couldn’t really call Mother Teresa the kind of person who would approve of yoga: she said “Wherever I go in the whole world, the thing that makes me the saddest is watching people receive Communion in the hand.” And besides, yoga predates Christianity by about 5 centuries: if the Church hasn’t condemned it en bloc by now, when the hell will it exactly?

So my problem with it is what, exactly? Same as it was before I became a Catholic, I guess. Call it spiritual wussiness or call it prudence: I’ve heard too many bad things about it to be comfortable with it. It’s easy to find bishops, exorcists and assorted spiritual leaders warning against it as well as the inevitable personal testimonies, with cautions ranging from “It’s an occasion for sin that you can do without” all the way to “Yoga poses bind your soul to demons!” (cunningly disguised as Hindu gods). As a helpful catholic.com article puts it: “Some […] are tempted to find the devil lurking under every yoga mat.” Of course, a great deal of this stuff is at the same level as such articles which warn me that the IHS on suspiciously sun-shaped communion wafers really stands for Isis Horus and Set and consequently a surefire ticket to eternal hellfire.

What gave me a little more pause for thought is the public warning by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, ex-president of the International Association of Exorcists, which made the papers a few years back, probably due mostly to his warning against Harry Potter in the same breath, in reality. From a comment on the catholic.com forum:

Why is the head exorcist of the Vatican, the head exorcist of the International association of exorcists Fr Gabriel Amorthe, and his successor Fr Fortea, they both have said in interviews and in the books they've written that yoga is demonic and catholics need to stay clear of it completely, and that they are experiencing people with demonic oppression from practicing yoga.

That sounds like quite a good question. Oddly though, despite many such references to the Vatican’s chief exorcist in the papers, neither his English or his Italian Wikipedia pages go beyond calling him “an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome”, which seemed like an oddly coy way of putting it. I was starting to suspect that the media had made up the title, but then I found a piece by famous canon lawyer (yeah, I know) Dr Edward Peters which calls him “the Chief Exorcist”. It’s safe to say that Dr Edwards knows his stuff, which is why it’s telling that the piece is a pretty thorough hatchet job on a book by Fr Amorthe: it makes you a bit hesitant to take him at his word, Chief Exorcist though he may be. So too does the fact that he seems to want to insist that Pope Francis performed an exorcism towards the end of a Pentecost mass in St Peter’s Square, despite the denial of the director of TV2000 and of the Vatican Press Office. Would the Pope really be cool with people just lying on his behalf like that? Hmm.

One especially arresting point in the catholic.com article that I mentioned earlier was this reference to the Catechism, Life in Christ, “You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me”:

2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion.[...]
2111 Superstition [...] can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.⁴¹

I was expecting the reference chosen at footnote 41 to be the one about heaping up empty phrases in prayer (Mt 6:7); it’s not, it’s cf. Mt 23:16-22, among the Woes of Pharisees, about swearing by the gold of the temple and by the gift on the altar. Of course, the context is that of Christian prayer and sacramental signs – things like yoga would appear to be irrelevant here – but the consequences of such a limitation seem a little funny. We can’t worship God in a purely external manner, but other things yes? So who’s in charge, God or the things?

Good grief though. It sounds awfully like my nagging squeamishness about physical positions that may or may not (I’m not even sure I’m interested in finding out now) be connected to Hindu gods is actually a great indicator of my weak faith: giving a kind of perverse honour to them through excessive religiosity in lawful practices, when Jesus is Lord of all and the body was created through Him. Sigh.

I’m not going to join a yoga class any time soon, because I don’t in fact particularly want to, and it seems best not to expose myself pointlessly to alternative spiritualities when I have enough problems with my own. I also certainly don’t want to act as though I’m stronger in my faith than those people who have found their way out of the Church through adherence to other spiritual disciplines: they obviously exist. Still less do I want anyone to take the idea that “Mark is a Catholic, and he thinks yoga is ok” as a green light for adopting a spirituality in opposition to Christianity. But it seems that on balance I have been I have been Foolish and Deluded and a Bear of No Brain At All to worry about it so much from a purely formal perspective. Probably time to have another look at Romans 14.

Heteronyms

2015-03-23T19:16:00.001+00:00

English: This is a Venn diagram showing the relationships between pronunciation, spelling, and meaning of words, for example, homographs, homonyms, homophones, heteronyms, and heterographs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in 2009, before Omnia, I did a month's trial period with another translation agency, Intrawelt. There was already an English guy there called Paul who decided to set me a linguistic challenge. I forget exactly what it was, something like words which seemed like they should have an opposite but don't? I remember one example was "feckless", because you don't have "feckful", only it looks as though some people feel that you do. Ah, "unpaired" words, I gather.

Anyway, when Jen joined Omnia, she seemed like the kind of person I could bother with such things myself, so I suggested a similar but different thingamajig: heteronyms. They're words where if you pronounce them one way they mean one thing and if you pronounce them another they mean something else! Anyway, it kills the time.

So we've been working on this list over Skype for a while, but today was Jen's last day so it'll be time

to call it a … day, and I thought I'd post it. Of course, you can find other, and undoubtedly longer, lists on the web, but this, for posterity, is our one:

affect
agape
analyses
appropriate
axes
bases
bass
bow
buffet
collect
compound
conduct
console
content
contest
contract
contrary
convict
curate
defect
denier
desert
diagnoses
does
dogged
dove
elaborate
entrance
forbear
frequent
glower
house
imagines
import
incensed
intimate
invalid
lead
legate
live
lower
minute
mouth
mush
none
number
object
pasty
present
proceeds
process
produce
project
pussy
read
rebel
recount
refuse
relay
resent
resume
routed
row
sake
second
sewer
shower
slaver
sow
supply
tear
used
wind
wound

And speaking of unpaired words:

SHOUTS & MURMURS, THE NEW YORKER, JULY 25, 1994

How I Met My Wife

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to rush it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

I knew it!

2014-09-15T20:58:00.000+01:00

I knew there must be defining and non-defining relative clauses in Italian as well:

Le frasi relative cambiano valore (e senso) a seconda che siano separate o meno con una virgola dalla reggente: gli uomini che credevano in lui lo seguirono cioè 'lo seguirono solo quelli che credevano in lui' è una relativa limitativa; gli uomini, che credevano in lui, lo seguirono, ovvero 'lo seguirono tutti gli uomini perché credevano in lui', è una relativa esplicativa.

As you were...

Review: Learn New Testament Greek by J.H. Dobson, 2nd edition + Some Advice on Learning Vocabulary

2013-08-12T22:20:00.000+01:00

It will have been around 2005 that I saw this book in the Exeter branch of SPCK and thought it
seemed worth a shot. In 2013, an engagement, change of country, marriage fluency in Italian and child later, I've finally finished the last of its 52 chapters. This is not the envisaged duration ("If you do 2 lessons a day 6 days a week, you will complete the course in 1 month"), but I did get rather distracted... Anyway, this is a little piece of history so far as I'm concerned, and given the very - 'hem - interesting experience I've had using this book and the very polarised reviews of it that I found online, I decided I wanted to do my own.

The premise

"The Learn New Testament Greek course [...] takes full account of modern research into the way people learn."

concentrates on vocabulary and forms common in the NT
enables you to begin reading the NT itself after just a few lessons

"By the end of the course you will be able to read much of the New Testament without constant reference to a dictionary."
"You will not be asked to memorize long lists of words, or grammatical forms."
"[You will be equipped] to tackle even unfamiliar passages of the New Testament with confidence."

Sounds rather good doesn't it?

My experience

Well, from what I recall of my first attempt (I think I had perhaps 5 goes in all), the best part was the beginning. A whole new alphabet is introduced relatively painlessly. A tape which accompanies the first few lessons really helps the pronunciation stick on your mind - in itself, a great aid to memory.

A simple, but very effective technique employed is that of continuous translation exercises. A column of Greek on the left with a column of English translation on the right. You cover the English, and have a go at translating it. I read that this Dobson chap's approach (according to the aforesaid "modern research") is the inductive method, where the idea basically seems to be to stretch students from the off by not giving them quite all the information they need and forcing them to do intelligent guesswork, so that they make grammatical connections themselves. However, the intro assures you that you shouldn't worry if you don't get something, you just note it, revise earlier lessons and do the lesson again.

Lesson two walks you through John 1:1. You know it's not a lot of material, but it is already the Bible, and just knowing that you can read one verse of actual scripture means a lot.

Most chapters contain a short vocabulary, which you need for the exercises but you've been told that you won't be asked to memorize long lists of words, but that information "is frequently repeated, which makes it easy to remember". On the other hand, the intro instructs you to write new words on flashcards (I think it means), carry them with you "for a few days" and review them in "spare moments".

I found the material interesting, and I found working through the exercises rewarding. When you get to chapter 17 and you're told to have a pop at 1 John 1:5-7, that's quite satisfying. I think the longest passage, near the end was two whole chapters of something.

A rather strange characteristic of the book is that it avoids grammatical terms insofar as possible, but mostly at the beginning. At a certain point there's a big switch and you find yourself adrift in a sea of second person singular aorist indicative passives, wondering if perhaps it wouldn't have been better to do all this terminology stuff one step at a time...

However...

At a certain point, I began to lose confidence in the adequacy of the system of repetition. I began to find the number of words I was forgetting frustrating. The intro suggested underlining or highlighting things I found difficult but... how would that actually help? Perhaps it would help me if I repeated the lesson, but I wasn't sure. I repeated some lessons, like the book said, but it didn't seem to help much, and it seemed silly to carry on repeating it when the method "takes full account of modern research into the way people learn", so I decided I would press on.

Still later, I decided I would do best to ignore the book's implicit advice and use a proper system (spaced repetition using software) to memorize the material properly. That helped a great deal, but it takes some effort to formulate the information, and by the time I realized that I needed to do it, I had a frustrating backlog of half-memorized vocabulary to work through and type up. I felt a bit cheated. But since I had been specifically told that I wasn't meant to try and memorize long lists of grammatical forms, I stuck to the short vocabularies: besides, the effort of arranging the other material into a usable format seemed rather prohibitive, so I left the nearly 24 forms of ὁς to one side and hoped for the best.

What I also started to realize was that Dobson was only showing me certain forms of things. The vocabularies and explanations implied the existence of other forms which we were not covering. Now, I can deal with that: obviously Dobson is concentrating on forms which help me understand to other forms, and the idea is that I fill in the gaps by making intelligent connections myself. However, the uncertainty is oppressive. One reviewer described the book as being like a long joke with no punch line. I'd say that was rather harsh but I do know precisely where he's coming from. Even after having finished the book, I know that there are plenty of gaps in my knowledge, but so successfully is the mechanism hidden that I don't even know what to look for.

The realisation that I wasn't retaining the vocab like I needed to made me temporaily abandon the book two times, I think. It was a big deal for me.

SRS Geekery (but it's useful, honest)

One particular bugbear of mine was the formal presentation of prepositions. Plenty had already been introduced gradually through the vocabularies, but quite near the end, there's an attempt to put it all together. As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty cack-handed. Instead of trying to adapt the material in the book for learning, I found it easier to use another book entirely. To explain why, have a look at this (There's a summary at the bottom: see 1-4, 9, 11):

Twenty rules of formulating knowledge

It's an article I only found recently, but I wish I'd found it sooner because I think it would have saved me a lot of grief. In hindsight, I find it makes an awful lot of sense, and if you plan on using spaced repetition software, I'd say that you should definitely read it. I'd say that the section on prepositions is the most extreme example of how the presentation of information inhibits learning in the book generally, and that it breaks all of the "rules" I pointed out above.

Take επι: Wenham's Elements of New Testament Greek tells me that the basic meaning for all cases (accusative, genitive, dative) is "in". That's pretty basic, and it leaves a lot to account for, but at least I know where I stand. (3)

In chapter 37, Dobson gives me 6 synonyms for the accusative case. An explanatory section follows which uses different terms in a different order.
In chapter 39, 5 for the genitive. The explanation gives different terms in a different order.
In chapter 42, 7 for the dative. The explanation gives different terms in a different order. At this juncture, the text helpfully points out that επι has "an extremely wide range of meanings". Well, duh. At least I can try and memorize the different cases separately, but those 7 synonyms for the dative? That's hellish. (9 - "It is nearly impossible to memorize sets containing more than five members..."!)

In every chapter, the initial list contains synonyms which are impossible to understand without context, since prepositions are used in myriads of ways in English too. (1-2) The repeated, spaced out listings of επι with different translations can only add to a general sense of confusion. (11)

General complaints

Index: either I'm mental, or a number of the page references are just wrong. Given that the material is splurged rather unpredictably throughout the book, that's pretty annoying.

Reference section: I've finished the course. It contained 3 noun paradigms, which it said I didn't need to actively learn. I now realise that it would have been a hell of a lot easier if I had. To add insult to injury, the reference "summary of types of noun" lists twenty of the buggers, with no explanation of why these twenty were selected. Are they regular, irregular, common, rare? What the hell am I meant to make of it? Same with the adjectives. The reference section contains new vocabulary. That's hardly a reference then, is it?! Is it worth learning?

This Dobson is an M.A. (Oxon) and B.D. (London), but he had me scratching my head in the wrong way at quite a few points. To take one example: "We should not translate βαπτισμα μετανοιας as 'a baptism of repentance' (AV, RSV, NJB, NIV) since baptism is not something that can be baptized." But... what kind of cretin would think that was the meaning of "baptism of repentance"?

In summary

It's rather difficult to work out how I feel about this book. On the whole I like it, and found it engaging, but I've found it to be beset with flaws which seem so pointless, which seem to render the whole course so needlessly arduous. Reading that back, I seem to have drawn up a paradox. The thing is, I would definitely recommend this book, but through gritted teeth, exhorting you warmly to read the article I linked to and save yourself frustration by not relying on Dobson's approach, but on another way of memorizing information. I like spaced repetition (see my post on Mnemosyne below), but it doesn't seem to be everybody's cup of tea.

I think the book is a great way into New Testament Greek, but unfortunately its claims seem to me to be rather exaggerated. Confidently read much of the New Testament without constant reference to a dictionary? Still a way off I think. I plan to fill in the gaps with Elements of New Testament Greek. It looks less friendly, but it has the benefit of laying it's cards on the table: learn this stuff, even if it seems overwhelming, and you will have a sound foundation for reading the New Testament.

That I might see!

2013-05-30T20:32:00.000+01:00

From today’s Daily Gospel:

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us his ways" (Is 2:3). Yearnings, strivings, longings, thoughts and affections, and all that is within me, come and let us go up to the mountain or place where the Lord both sees and is seen! But worries and anxieties, concerns and toils, and all the sufferings involved in my enslaved condition, all of you must stay here... while we hasten up the mountain; so that, when we have worshiped (cf. Gn 22:5), we may come back to you. For we shall come back, and that unfortunately, all too soon.

"Lord God of hosts, restore us; show us your face, and we shall be saved" (Ps 80:20). But alas, O Lord, alas! To want to see God when one is unclean in heart is surely quite outrageous, rash and presumptuous, and altogether out of order and against the rule of the word of truth and of your wisdom! Yet you are he who is supremely good, goodness itself, the life of our heart and light of our inward eyes. For your goodness' sake, have mercy on us, Lord.

For the beholding of your goodness is of itself my cleansing, my confidence, my holiness. You have your own way, my Lord God, of saying to my soul: "I am your salvation" (Ps 35:3). Wherefore, Rabboni, Master supreme, you who alone can teach me how to see the things that I desire to see, say to your blind beggar: "What do you want me to do for you?” And you know, since it happens only by your gift... you know how my heart then says to you: "My face has sought you: your face then will I seek. Do not turn your face from me” (cf. Ps 27:8-9).

– William of Saint-Thierry (c.1085-1148), Benedictine, then a Cistercian monk.

#twitterangelus in original κοινή/latina

2013-04-12T19:00:00.000+01:00

Detail of the Annunciation (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)

Just for fun, you understand.

♪ ♪ ♪ [Ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι] τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ † καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος. #twitterangelus #grcla
Ἀμήν. #twitterangelus † #twitterangelus #grcla

● Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ, #twitterangelus #grcla
et concepit de Spiritu Sancto. #twitterangelus #grcla
●¹ Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. #twitterangelus #grcla
●¹ Εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου[, Ἰησοῦ]. #twitterangelus #grcla
¹ Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen. #twitterangelus #grcla

● Ἰδοὺ ἡ δούλη κυρίου· #twitterangelus #grcla
γένοιτό μοι κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά σου. #twitterangelus #grcla
●² Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. #twitterangelus #grcla
●² Εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου[, Ἰησοῦ]. #twitterangelus #grcla
² Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen. #twitterangelus #grcla

● Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο #inginocchio #twitterangelus #grcla
καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν. #twitterangelus #grcla
●³ Χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη, ὁ κύριος μετὰ σοῦ. #twitterangelus #grcla
●³ Εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου[, Ἰησοῦ]. #twitterangelus #grcla
³ Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen. #twitterangelus #grcla

I remembered, after my initial stab at this, that the trinitarian formula is biblical, so I put it in. However, when I looked at the Greek, I noticed that the preposition isn’t ἐν (in, inside, within, among), but ἐις (into). I’m still – definitely – learning Greek, so I wasn’t sure, but I reckoned I probably needed to modify it for liturgical use. In Matthew 28:19, baptising into the name might make sense – we are baptised into the body (1 Cor 12:13) and our baptism clothes us with Christ, making us sons of God (Gal 3:26–27) – but praying ‘into the name’ of the Trinity? Strikes me as pretty fishy.

I had a vague idea I’d heard about baptising “into the name” of the Trinity before, probably Fr. Barron, but to make sure I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree I had a look at various translations of Mt 28:19. Apparently it was the right tree after all, since some of the fruitier versions had baptising “into the name of”.

Somewhere among the many free reference materials you can get on the web these days I found a “word study” if I remember rightly, which told me that you could find “ἐν the name” in Acts 10:48 and that it did indeed have a different meaning/nuance/something. Consequently, I’ve whacked that in there, hoping I haven’t, in my ignorance, made a hash of things.

So there you are.

Related articles

Angelus: Adjectives + Imperative – Ave, o Maria…

2013-02-04T20:17:00.000+00:00

●¹ Ave, o Maria, piena di grazia, il Signore è con te. #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) 31 gennaio 2013

@marktsoapm 1 Santa Maria, Madre di Dio, prega per noi peccatori, adesso e nell'ora della nostra morte. Amen. #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Lambert (@sitsio) 31 gennaio 2013

The (Twitter-friendly) text of the Angelus in Italian.
A (hasty) recording of the Angelus in Italian.

ave

Well, no mystery here: it's ave in much the same way as the Latin, "hail". I looked it up in Treccani just to be sure that it didn't have some kind of hidden significance, but apparently not: "used [...] as a form of greeting and well-wishing"

o

Again, nothing complicated here, except for the fact that it's a homograph for the Italian word for "or". The same as "O" before a name in English; an archaic way of signalling the vocative, O reader.

piena

These are the adjectives in the Angelus:

pieno - full
santo - holy (saint)
degno - worthy (dignity)
eterno - eternal
perpetuo - perpetual

(mio - my)
tuo - your
suo - his/her/its
nostro - our
(vostro - your [plural])
(loro - their)

benedetto - blessed (benediction)
fatto - done, made

I didn't write specifically on adjectives last time, but this mostly covers it. This time I added in the remaining possessive forms.

The last two adjectives are based on verbs, as with santificato here. From the Latin benedicere (bene 'well' + dicere 'say'), to bless, comes benedire in Italian. Dire remains the Italian verb meaning 'to say', and its irregular past participle is detto. The irregular past participle of fare (to do/make) is fatto.

Mnemosyne

2013-02-01T12:53:00.000+00:00

I suppose there’s an outside possibility that you won’t find this very interesting, but I’ve found some new spaced repetition software! Woo!

I was using MemoryLifter for a long time, and I like knowing the methodology involved, but the software had a couple of disadvantages: I could only use it at home (difficult with toddler), and there was no way of using it to learn various things together or apart e.g. you either lump Greek and Italian vocab together or manually switch between different ‘learning modules’ – way too clunky.

With Mnemosyne, on the other hand, you can install it on a USB stick and use it wherever the hell you want, and though you would put everything in one ‘module’, it lets you tag your subjects, so when I’m working I can use it only for work-related things, and on breaks or between jobs whatever I like.

Not sure how I feel about the algorithm, but I shall see how it goes. I feel another attempt at learning New Testament Greek coming on! I believe I shall also use the services of TypeGreek.com, which I wish I’d known existed before.

Things, you know, and stuff.

2013-01-24T09:40:00.000+00:00

It's about time I did a non-themed, what's-happening-in-my-life type, blog entry. Trouble is, every time I think about writing such a thing I start to feel a bit overwhelmed. I'm not even going to try to blog about Christmas. Life is very bitty right now.

Ho hum.

We need to organise our house; after Christmas we have toys for Noemi coming out of our ears and we really need furniture but without a car it's hard for us to get anything decent. Then Monica is having some health troubles; perhaps she's allergic to milk protein. This means tests. We've been quite lucky with the snow so far; let's hope that lasts! It came down for a few days but now the rain's washed pretty much all of it away.

Nice to be getting back into the swing of choir. Yesterday was a bit too much hard work though; lots of things the tenors (including) were having issues getting to grips with and irritated sopranos taking it upon themselves to intervene.

Work is somewhat slow. I'm sure it won't last, so I'm just trying to relax and enjoy it. It means that when translations do come in, there's a good chance of me doing them rather than reviewing them (yuk) and it's let me get back into trying to learn to touch type. I had a long break because my Outlook reminders stopped working and I don't have much of a memory. Also bad for my prayer life. Go Mark! Anyway, I'm still bloody slow at touch typing, but I suppose if I keep on practising I'll get to a point where I can switch at some point.

We had a big meeting at work recently. All our meetings are big because we have them once in a blue moon (every death of a Pope, they say in Italian). Anyway, it went on for ages and I had to interpret, which I'm crap at, for the English-speakers, so it really got me down, but on the plus side they're trying to address some of our more glaring problems and at least talking about dialogue.

I've decided that I'd like to get a Kobo, but we can't afford it. They're in cahoots with Mondadori, a major Italian publisher, which apparently means 30,000 free titles, but there must be a catch. Maybe if I get money for my birthday in May I can think about it then. Our library has joined this thing, which Lauren says you have in England as well, which sounds pretty handy. The most awesomest part of it as far as I'm concerned are the integrated monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and the possibility of reading those documents that you can get for free on the web but would rather gouge out your eyes than read on a monitor, like, in my case, copyright-expired book, encyclicals, political speeches etc.

Ok, ramble and out.

Angelus: Feminine Nouns + Pronouns – ed ella concepì per opera…

2013-01-17T12:24:00.000+00:00

@marktsoapm ed ella concepì per opera dello Spirito Santo. #twitterangelus #it
— Caral James (@Caral4Christ) Gennaio 11, 2013

The (Twitter-friendly) text of the Angelus in Italian.
A (hasty) recording of the Angelus in Italian.

ed

ed is a modified form of e, so it just means "and" again. It's called the 'd eufonica'; it's euphonic in that it avoids a cacophonic repetition of the vowel 'e' together with ella.

This can also happen with the preposition a–ad (to) or o–od (or).

ella

This is another case of literary/formal language. I conjugated essere with its subject pronouns last time (here). Now we can expand it a little with some literary forms, which I've put in green.

	essere	(to) be, being
io	sono	I am
tu	sei	you are
lui/egli, lei/ella, Lei	è	he/she/it is (+ you are)
noi	siamo	we are
voi	siete	you are (plural)
loro, essi, esse	sono	they are

Egli and ella are simple enough; they're direct literary equivalents for "he" and "she". The distinction for "they" is to do with gender and agreement, which I discussed here, but without touching on the relevant aspect. essi is the masculine form, and esse the feminine; this is simple enough since it corresponds to the normal endings of nouns, but with plurals it's a bit more complicated. What happens when you're dealing with a mix of masculine and feminine? The answer is simple, if arbitrary, you use the masculine form. In effect, you would only see esse when talking about a group comprising exclusively women. In the following, for example, the prayer is for all the dead, men and women:

splenda ad essi la Luce Perpetua
may-it-shine to them the Light Perpetual

Here we're talking about forms which you wouldn't tend to use every day, but the same rule applies in regular Italian:

sono benedetto – I am blessed (male speaker)
sono benedetta – I am blessed (female speaker)
sono benedetti – they are blessed (men or mixed group)
sono benedetti – they are blessed (women)

opera

These are the feminine nouns in the Angelus:

singular	plural	English
la grazia	le grazie	the grace(s)
la donna	le donne	the woman/women
la madre	le madri	the mother(s)
la morte	le morti	the death(s)	mortal
la serva	le serve	the female servant(s)
la parola	le parole	the word(s)
la carne	le carni	the flesh, meat	carnal
la promessa	le promesse	the promise(s)
la passione	le passioni	the passion(s)
la croce	le croci	the cross(es)	crucifix
la gloria	le glorie	the glory/glories
la risurrezione	le risurrezioni	the resurrection(s)
la luce	le luci	the light(s)	lucid
la pace	le paci	the peace(s)	pacifist
(la peccatrice)	(le peccatrici)	(the female sinner(s))	im-peccable

l'opera	le opere	the work, action, means	operation
l'ora	le ore	the hour(s)
l'incarnazione	le incarnazioni	the incarnation(s)

You can see what I wrote on nouns, both masculine and feminine, last time here. Take a look before carrying on. Here there are more things to take into account.

Again, there are feminine nouns that begin with a vowel: opera, ora and incarnazione. As with the masculine nouns, the normal article "la" becomes an "l" with apostrophe. The plural, however, remains "le" in all cases.

With many words, there is a masculine and a feminine version. This can be quite simple, as in the case of "servant" – il servo (male) and la serva (female) – or slightly more complicated. I added peccatrice, which isn't in the Angelus, by way of illustration. You may remember that I listed il peccatore as "sinner" among the masculine nouns.

prega per noi peccatori
pray for us sinners

Here, as I was saying above, the masculine form is used to cover both sexes, but if, in a fit of philogyny, I were to pray for women only, it would have been peccatrici.

The -trix suffix isn't widely used in English, but it reflects the pair of -tore and -trice in Italian:

executor - executrix
genitor - genitrix

Bible Tweets: 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

2013-01-16T13:19:00.000+00:00

Ness1 ti chiamerà più Abbandonata, ma sarai chiamata Mia Gioia. Come gioisce lo sposo per la sposa, così il tuo Dio gioirà per te. Is 62,4–5

Cantate al Signore, uomini di tt la terra. Annunciate di giorno in giorno la sua salvezza, in mezzo alle genti la sua gloria Sal 96(95),1–3

Gioiscano i cieli, esulti la terra, risuoni il mare; sia in festa la campagna e gli alberi davanti al Signore che viene. Sal 96(95),11–13

1 solo è lo Spirito e 1 solo è Dio, che opera tutto in tutti. A ognuno è data 1 manifestazione dello Spirito × il bene comune. 1Cor 12,4.6–7

La madre di Gesù gli disse: "Non hanno vino": l'acqua che fece diventare vino fu l'inizio dei segni compiuti da Gesù. Gv 2,3.9.11

Angelus: Regular Verbs + Passato Remoto – L'angelo del Signore portò…

2013-01-11T11:27:00.000+00:00

● L'angelo del Signore portò l'annuncio a Maria, #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Gennaio 8, 2013

ed ella concepì per opera dello Spirito Santo. #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Gennaio 8, 2013

The (Twitter-friendly) text of the Angelus in Italian.
A (hasty) recording of the Angelus in Italian.

These two lines feature some regular verbs. I illustrated regular verbs here, and you should read this about the polite form.

Here's a recap using verbs from the Angelus instead:

-are	-ere	-ire
portare	infondere	concepire
bring, take	infuse, instil	conceive	bringing, infusing, conceiving
present indicative
porto	infondo	concepisco	I bring, infuse, conceive
porti	infondi	concepisci	you bring, infuse, conceive
porta	infonde	concepisce	he/she/it brings, infuses, conceives (you bring etc.)
portiamo	infondiamo	concepiamo	we bring, infuse, conceive
portate	infondete	concepite	you (plural) bring, infuse, conceive
portano	infondono	concepiscono	they bring, infuse, conceive
passato remoto (remote past, simple past)
portò	infuse	concepì	he brought, infused, conceived

In fact, not all these verbs are perfectly regular, but they are regular in the present indicative – that will do for us.

I’ve put the regular endings in bold. In fact, there are two regular forms for -ire verbs. Last time I put the version which was more similar to the -are and -ire forms, to make it simpler, but in fact, these endings are more common.

Now, I'm going through the Angelus in order, so I'm touching on a few things in an order that you wouldn't usually adopt in learning. The Padre Nostro doesn't use any kind of past tense. The Angelus, on the other hand uses a form of the past tense that you're unlikely to cover in a beginners' course. Shouldn't I just gloss over it then? Well, no, I don't think so. Not just because it's in the Angelus either. It's used extensively in written Italian: if you read any Italian, you're pretty much bound to find it. So it pays to recognise it when you see it.

But instead of hitting you with a complete verb conjugation, I've just added the third person at the bottom, since that's the form you're most likely to encounter (and the only form in the Angelus too). In -are and -ire you can see that they both end with an accented vowel, which should help you to spot it. This is only slightly confused by the fact that the future can end with an accented vowel too: but in that case there would be an r first (e.g. porterò, porterai, porterà).

I already said that infondere wasn't perfectly regular, so it has its own peculiar form as you can see. The really important one to remember in any case is -are, -ò since this conjugation accounts for the majority of Italian verbs. The regular endings (for some reason there are two) for -ere verbs would be -ette and -é, though many -ere verbs are irregular anyway.

Angelus: Prepositions with Articles – Nel nome del Padre…

2013-01-08T11:38:00.000+00:00

♪ ♪ ♪ Nel nome del Padre e del Figlio † e dello Spirito Santo. #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Gennaio 7, 2013

nel, del, dello

To see what's going on in this first line, we also need to look at how prepositions combine with articles. What I wrote on this last time is here.

The Angelus is longer than the Padre Nostro. It also contains more prepositions. Have a look:

a - to
da - from
in - in
di - of
su - on
per - for, by means of
con - with
fra - between, among, from

Those are only the basic meanings; the functions of prepositions tend to vary wildly according to circumstance, so it would be a fool's errand to attempt to cover all the possibilities here. One to watch out for in the Angelus, however, is per, which can mean "by means of", as in:

per opera dello Spirito
by [the] work of-the Spirit

per la sua passione e la sua croce
through (the) his passion and (the) his cross

Whereas su doesn't actually appear in the Angleus; I added it so that the table I'm about to give you is complete. Last time, for the Padre Nostro, there were less prepositions, and we didn't have all the articles, so the table of prepositions combining with articles didn't need to be so big. This time you can see the whole thing:

	masculine					feminine
	singular			plural		singular		plural
	+ il	+ l'	+ lo	+ i	+ gli	+ la	+ l'	+ le
a	al	all'	allo	ai	agli	alla	all'	alle
da	dal	dall'	dallo	dai	dagli	dalla	dall'	dalle
in	nel	nell'	nello	nei	negli	nella	nell'	nelle
di	del	dell'	dello	dei	degli	della	dell'	delle
su	sul	sull'	sullo	sui	sugli	sulla	sull'	sulle

e

e means "and", of course, same as it did last time. And that's the first line covered already.

Angelus: Masculine Nouns – Nel nome del Padre…

2013-01-04T07:59:00.000+00:00

♪ ♪ ♪ Nel nome del Padre e del Figlio † e dello Spirito Santo. #twitterangelus #it
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Gennaio 3, 2013

Some time ago I took a look at the Lord's Prayer in Italian, from first principles. So when someone on Twitter was asking for “suggestions on how to learn a smattering of Italian” I thought I’d point them there.

Then I thought I might as well revisit it with the Angelus, since I actually tweet it pretty regularly and it might be more useful. I don’t feel the need to repeat everything that I already blogged, but I thought I could do it as a kind of, well, revision. There are probably a few things I might go into in further detail, but not so many. So here we go again.

These are the masculine nouns in the Angelus:

singular	plural	English
il nome	i nomi	the name(s)	nominate
il padre	i padri	the father(s)
il figlio	i figli	the son(s)	filial
il signore	i signori	the lord, Mr., man
il frutto	i frutti	the fruit(s)
il seno	i seni	the breast, womb
il dio	gli dei	the god(s)	deity
il peccatore	i peccatori	the sinner(s)	im-peccable
il verbo	i verbi	the word(s)	verbal
il principio	i principi	the beginning, principle
il secolo	i secoli	the century (pl. ages, years)
il riposo	i riposi	the rest(s)	repose

l'angelo	gli angeli	the angel(s)
l'annuncio	gli annunci	the announcement, notice

lo spirito	gli spiriti	the spirit(s)

You can see what I wrote on nouns, both masculine and feminine, last time here. Take a look before carrying on. Here there are more things to take into account.

Firstly there are some nouns which end in -io, figlio and principio. Instead of ending with a double "i", they sort of fuse into one. This isn't always the case, but I think I’m right in saying that it normally is, so let’s leave it at that.

Then there are the masculine nouns that begin with a vowel, angelo and annuncio. In a similar way to "a" and "an" in English, the "il" becomes an "l" with apostrophe. In the plural, this becomes "gli" instead of the normal "i".

The article for spirito is different too. Masculine nouns that begin in a certain way, especially z-, st- or sp-, have a third form of the article, "lo". In these cases too, the plural is "gli".

I think that’s enough to start with; there were more things that needed elaborating than I thought.

Bible Tweets: 1st Sunday of Advent

2012-11-28T08:01:00.002+00:00

Farò rimarginare la loro piaga, li curerò e li risanerò; si stupiranno e fremeranno x tutto il bene e la pace che concederò loro. Jer 33:6,9

Verranno giorni nei quali farò germogliare x Davide 1 germoglio giusto, ke eserciterà il giudizio e la giustizia sulla terra. Jer 33:15

Il Signore indicherà la via da scegliere. I miei occhi sn sempre rivolti a lui, è lui ke fa uscire dalla rete il mio piede. Ps 25:12,15

Il Signore vi faccia sovrabbondare nell'amore × rendere saldi i vs ♥ e irreprensibili nella santità alla venuta del Signor ns Gesù. 1 Thessalonians 3:12–13

Dio, che vi dona il suo santo Spirito, non ci ha chiamati all'impurità, ma alla santificazione. Questa infatti è volontà di Dio. 1 Thessalonians 4:7–8,3

Con la vostra perseveranza salverete la vostra vita. Risollevatevi e alzate il capo, perché la vostra liberazione è vicina. Lc 21,19.28
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Novembre 27, 2012

Lk 21:19,28

Saint John Chrysostom: Homilies on Saint Matthew's Gospel, no.46, 2

2012-10-30T08:48:00.003+00:00

Our Lord next puts forward the parable of the yeast. “Just as yeast communicates its invisible force to the whole lump of dough, so will the force of the Gospel transform the whole world by means of the apostles' ministry... Don't ask me: 'What can we twelve, miserable sinners do in face of the whole world?' This is precisely the vast difference between cause and effect, between a handful of men before a crowd, which will demonstrate the stunning effect of your strength. Isn't it by mixing the yeast into the dough, by 'hiding' it as the Gospel says, that it transforms the whole lump? In the same way, apostles of mine, it is by being mixed into the great mass of peoples that you will impregnate them with your spirit and win victory over your adversaries. Even as it disappears into the mass, yeast does not lose its strength. To the contrary, it changes the whole dough's nature. In the same way, your preaching will change all peoples. Therefore, be full of confidence”...

It is Christ who grants such great strength to this yeast... So don't blame him for the small number of his disciples: it is the strength of the message that is great... A spark is enough to change a few sticks of dry wood into a blaze that will afterwards set even all the green wood at the edge on fire.

Bible Tweets: 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

2012-10-11T20:59:00.001+01:00

Hi!

Thought I'd do this again. Won't have much time for blogging/tweeting for a bit since my parents are popping down for a bit. They're heading to fair Verona first. That's what Shakespeare called it, so it's probably true.

Gustate e vedete com'è buono il Signore;I leoni sono miseri e affamati,ma a chi cerca il Signore non manca alcun bene. Sal 34,9.11
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Ottobre 8, 2012

Insieme alla sapienza mi sono venuti tutti i beni; mi conceda Dio di riflettere in modo degno dei doni ricevuti. Sap 7,11.15 (Wis 7:11,15)

In Cristo, il mistero di Dio, sono nascosti tutti i tesori della sapienza e della conoscenza. Col 2,2–3 (Col 2:2–3)

Prima ke il mondo fosse generato, da sempre e x sempre tu sei, o Dio; noi voliamo via. Sia su di noi la dolcezza del Signore. Sal 90,2.10.17 (Ps 90:2,10,17)

Viene la fine: ecco, viene! Getteranno l'argento per le strade e il loro oro si cambierà in immondizia. Ez 7,6.19 (Ezek 7:6,19)

Infatti la parola di Dio è viva, efficace e più tagliente di ogni spada a doppio taglio. Eb 4,12 (Heb 4:12)

Bene per me è la legge della tua bocca, più di mille pezzi d'oro e d'argento. Sal 119,72 (Ps 119:72)

.@hredux @bruvvereccles I guess so; I recall something about everyone getting golden crowns…
— Mark Dobson (@MarkTSoaPM) Ottobre 11, 2012

Preghiera del Corista

2012-10-08T13:01:00.000+01:00

S. Geminiano

Pensavo di trovare questa prehiera da qualche parte sul web, ma invece no, per cui:

(di S. Ecc. Rev.ma Bartolomeo Santo Quadri)

Padre Santo, onnipotente e misericordioso, con Gesù e lo Spirito Santo, aiutaci a ben prepararci per fare del nostro canto una espressione sempre più bella e convinta, pura e gioisa del nostro amore per Te e per tutti i Tuoi figli e nostri fratelli che ci ascoltano. Te lo chiediamo per intercessione di Maria Santissima, Madre del Tuo figlio, di Santa Cecilia e di San Geminiano, meravigliosi cantoi del Tuo amore per l’umanità.

Adventures in Nature

2012-10-03T11:16:00.000+01:00

Hurrah! The Italian Co-Op is running another nature-based card-collecting thingamy, Avventure nella natura. Noemi liked the last one, with stickers, so we went so far as to buy the book to put them in this time. Trouble is that, unlike the last collection, which was a lot more international, this one is focused on Italy, so it’s harder to translate into English. Animals in other continents have names which are much easier to guess; you’d have to be a bit simple not to work out what a giraffa or an elefante is, but a picchio?

So, much to Monica’s despair, I set out to find the names for everything. It’s generally not difficult, what with wikipedia and all (you just have to keep an eye on the Latin taxonomy), but I found it quite interesting…

It’s satisfying when you can correct the dictionary; Hoepli calls a salamandra pezzata a spotted salamander, but it looks to me a lot more like a fire salamander, which is also a much more satisfying name! The libellula damigella still has me stumped though. You don’t find helpful hits for it in Google in Italian. Literally, you get “damsel/demoiselle dragonfly”. Does it just mean damselfly, generically? That’s different from a dragonfly. Anyway, there are specific ones called the beautiful demoiselle and the banded demoiselle. I can’t work it out.

I like the ones that you wouldn’t ever guess, and there are plenty of those: a colubro di riccioli is called Riccioli’s snake apparently, but also a southern smooth snake, which makes you wonder where all the rough snakes are hidden. North America and Australia, it would appear. Farnia is English oak (though oak is usually quercia) despite the fact that you can find it in most of Europe and it’s called French oak as well! Perhaps something to do with the Royal Oak. A ragno zebra should be a zebra spider, but you can see it isn’t. We reckon it looks more like a wasp. Speaking of spiders, I was surprised to learn that a water shrew in Italian is a toporagno d‘acqua, since toporagno is “spidermouse” (spidermouse, does whatever a spider… might espouse…). So why’s that then? They’ve only, “like many shrews”, got “venomous saliva, making it one of the few venomous mammals”! I never knew. Having followed the intriguing link, I shall never turn my back on a male platypus again! What goes by the name of saettone (“great big lightning bolt”) in Italian is a dignified “Aesculapian snake” in English. At some point I must work out how to pronounce that. Conversely, the humble newt (pace Gussie Fink-Nottle) is named for Triton in Italian (as are mermen) – tritone. An ofride verde–bruna (“green–brown ophrys”) is an early spider orchid round our way, because it looks like a spider. One who is early, presumably. A foca monaca mediterranea is obviously a Mediterranean monk seal, but shouldn’t it be a nun (monaca) seal? I think we should be told.

The Co-Op says there’s such a thing as a lupo appenninico, but apparently not everyone is so sure. I learnt another name for stick insects too: phasmid (and fasmidi in Italian). It’s from the Greek “φάσμα phasma, meaning an apparition or phantom”, which is a slightly more romantic notion than sticks. Putting the English name to a puma (yes, yes, I know) is harder than you might think; it has more than 40, which makes it a Guinness record-holder. I’d forgotten that there was a bird called a shag (tee hee!), but I didn’t realise that it was a kind of (crested?) cormorant (marangone [dal ciuffo]). I like cormorants. I like the fact that they stick their wings out heraldically to dry because their feathers aren’t waterproof so they can dive further into the sea. Wikipedia tells me that it was used as a symbol of the cross and reminds me (obviously I already knew – cough) that Milton’s Satan adopted the cormorant as a disguise. I also learnt of the rana pollo delle montagne: it’s a massive frog that the locals hunt for and call… a mountain chicken!

Satisfyingly, there is one – count them, one – animal with no translation. An Italian dog called a cirneco dell’etna. Voglio dire, mica si può tradurre tutto! There’s another dog in there called a pastore maremmano–abruzzese, but that’s a Maremma sheepdog; not sure what the abruzzesi make of that…

Monica reckons I enjoy this much more than Noemi. She might be right.

Coro

2012-10-01T16:10:00.000+01:00

A mio avviso, c’è un aspetto della musica sacra che è stato stranamente trascurato nella Chiesa in Inghilterra e Italia, nonostante delle ottime intenzioni: la piena e attiva partecipazione di tutto il popolo. Da convertito dal protestantesimo ho sempre trovato stranissimo la mancanza di voglia di cantare alla messa. Infatti, pur riconoscendone la verità dal mio passato altrove, non ho mai sperimentato il seguente in una chiesa cattolica:

“Non c’è niente di più solenne e festoso nelle sacre celebrazioni di una assemblea che, tutta, esprime con il canto la sua pietà e la sua fede.” (Musicam Sacram 16)
“A tale piena e attiva partecipazione di tutto il popolo va dedicata una specialissima cura.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 14)

Per qualche motivo l'inglese è più forte; è “to be considered before all else” (MS (en) 16). In altri documenti ci sono riferimenti più specifici ai cori:

“Il «coro» o «cappella musicale» o «schola cantorum» […] deve infatti […] favorire la partecipazione attiva dei fedeli nel canto.” (Musicam Sacram 19)
“Tra i fedeli esercita un proprio ufficio liturgico la schola cantorum o coro, il cui compito è quello di […] promuovere la partecipazione attiva dei fedeli nel canto.” (Ordinamento Generale del Messale Romano 103)

A me pare che il metodo più diffuso per tentare di raggiungere questo obiettivo è quello di abbandonare la musica bella ma difficile per quella più accessibile. Non è ottimale, anche se è comprensibile. Comunque, siamo capaci di più:

“Con una adatta catechesi e con esercitazioni pratiche si conduca gradatamente il popolo ad una sempre più ampia, anzi fino alla piena partecipazione a tutto ciò che gli spetta.” (MS 16b)

Per me, un coro parrocchiale e tenuto a pensare all’assemblea, a condividere le proprie capacità con la gente, anche cercare di insegnare. Infatti, se non c’è un impegno dalla parte dei musicisti in questo senso, è difficile capire chi potrebbe farlo. È però importante riconoscere che si tratta di un equilibrio. Non si può semplicemente sacrificare la bellezza per la partecipazione o la partecipazione per la bellezza:

“La bellezza, pertanto, non è un fattore decorativo dell'azione liturgica; ne è piuttosto elemento costitutivo, in quanto è attributo di Dio stesso e della sua rivelazione.” (Sacramentum Caritatis 35)
“Ma non è da approvarsi l’uso di affidare per intero alla sola «schola cantorum» tutte le parti cantate del «Proprio» e dell’« Ordinario», escludendo completamente il popolo dalla partecipazione nel canto.” (MS 16c)

Per quello credo che sia importante trovare arrangiamenti di inni che sono noti, in modo che l’assemblea può entrare nel canto, oltre misure banali quale indicargli i canti. Ma credo anche che una bella iniziativa potrebbe essere definire e promuovere qualche prova aperta, per chi vorrebbe cantare meglio ma non ha voglia/tempo di far parte di un coro. Suggerirei arrangiamenti di inni o l’Ordinario della messa.

Teoricamente dovremmo anche trovare spazio per il latino e il canto gregoriano:

“Si abbia cura però che i fedeli sappiano recitare e cantare insieme, anche in lingua latina, le parti dell'ordinario della messa che spettano ad essi.” (SC 54)
“A parità condizioni, si dia la preferenza al canto gregoriano, in quanto proprio della Liturgia romana. Gli altri generi di musica sacra, specialmente la polifonia, non sono affatto da escludere, purché rispondano allo spirito dell’azione liturgica e favoriscano la partecipazione di tutti i fedeli”. (OGMR 41)

Io credo che esiste un modo semplice e bello di rispettare questo: la Missa De Angelis. Immagino che non piace a tutti ma per me è bello, e non è neanche difficile quanto può sembrare. Il mio coro in Inghilterra lo cantava ogni mese e un corista aveva un figlio di 2 anni che la canticchiava sempre… Un fatto positivo è che si potrebbe stampare su un foglio solo! Io faccio fatica a cantare senza una partitura, non immagino che sia facile per chi vorrebbe cantare a messa e non fa parte del coro.

Sono anche a favore di cantare i salmi, entro le nostre possibilità. Si fa presto a dire… Magari dovrei contattare il mio vecchio coro; il maestro aveva trovato delle belle melodie a 4 voci (canto anglicano) per le strofe. D’altra parte, ha lavorato tanto per allinearle con i testi, e non so come ha fatto con la risposta.

“Conviene che il salmo responsoriale si esegua con il canto, almeno per quanto riguarda la risposta del popolo.” (OGMR 61)

Dob-log

Proportional Representation Petition

Cruciverba Criptici

Come funzionano

Altri tipi d'indizio

Sciarada

Contenitore

Depennamento

Definizione doppia

Parole nascoste

Lettere iniziali

Lettere pari/dispari

Inversione

Definizione enigmatica

Omofono

Spoonerism

&lett. / tutto compreso

Combinazioni e pezzetti

Equivocazione

Dove iniziare

English hymn MP3s

Related articles

Psalm Tones for Night Prayer: Psalm 85(86) - Tone II

Related articles

Anglican Chant: Psalm 103

Related articles

Yoga

Related articles

Heteronyms

I knew it!

Review: Learn New Testament Greek by J.H. Dobson, 2nd edition + Some Advice on Learning Vocabulary

Related articles

That I might see!

Related articles

#twitterangelus in original κοινή/latina

Related articles

Angelus: Adjectives + Imperative – Ave, o Maria…

Related articles

Mnemosyne

Things, you know, and stuff.

Related articles

Angelus: Feminine Nouns + Pronouns – ed ella concepì per opera…

Related articles

Bible Tweets: 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Angelus: Regular Verbs + Passato Remoto – L'angelo del Signore portò…

Angelus: Prepositions with Articles – Nel nome del Padre…

Related articles

Angelus: Masculine Nouns – Nel nome del Padre…

Related articles

Bible Tweets: 1st Sunday of Advent

Saint John Chrysostom: Homilies on Saint Matthew's Gospel, no.46, 2

Related articles

Bible Tweets: 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

(Not Really) Related articles

Preghiera del Corista

Adventures in Nature

Related articles

Coro