February 12, 2011

Good Saturday morning everyone.

 

There are several varieties of flu floating around here at the moment and I picked up a really bad one on Wednesday so excuse the late arrival of this week's "This and That…..".  One cannot help but be impressed and inspired by the events in Egypt over the last few weeks.  The sight of throngs of Muslims at prayer and the footage of the circle of Muslims protecting the Coptic community at prayer was very moving.  However, into all of this, there needs to be a dose of reality.  The Christian community of Egypt is in a very difficult position and this piece in the opinions section of USA Today paints a grim picture.  We have seen this before in Iraq.

   

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-07-column07_ST_N.htm

 

Paul Turner was a speaker at the Southwest Liturgical Conference and spoke on the role of catechesis in preparing for the reception of new texts in the new missal. Here, he walks you through the development of Eucharistic Prayer II, and he highlights three particular words and phrases that will require more catechesis before and after their first use: "merit," "many," and "dewfall."  This part of his concluding paragraph is one to remember:  "So, let me just warn you about the power of prayer: you can study the words of a prayer, critique the words, teach the words and say the words, but if you're not looking you may miss out on something more important than all these things: those words are studying you, they are learning you, teaching you and forming you. They will put you to work; they will send you out on mission."

 

http://paulturner.org/pdf_files/dewfall.pdf

 

Have a good week.

 

Con