Intervju med pave (emeritus) Benedikt

Paven, Teologi /

Det har nylig blitt offentliggjort et intervju med pave (emeritus) Benedikt XVI, som tar opp temaer som «mercy and our need for forgiveness, salvation through the cross, the necessity of baptism, and the importance of sharing in Christ’s redeeming love.» Intervjuet ble gjort i oktober i fjor, før en konferanse om rettferdiggjørelse og tro i Roma (i Jesuittenes kirke Il Jesu) – der teksten ble lest opp av erkebiskop Georg Gänswein.

Forandringer i synet på rettferdiggjørelse blir tatt opp tidlig i intervjuet, er der leser vi bl.a.:

For the man of today, compared to those of the time of Luther and to those holding the classical perspective of the Christian faith, things are in a certain sense inverted, or rather, is no longer man who believes he needs justification before God, but rather he is of the opinion that God is obliged to justify himself because of all the horrible things in the world and in the face of the misery of being human, all of which ultimately depend on Him. In this regard, I find it significant that a Catholic theologian may profess even in a direct and formal this inverted position: that Christ did not suffer for the sins of men, but rather, as it were, had «canceled the guilt of God.» Even if most Christians today would not share such a drastic reversal of our faith, we could say that all of this reveals an underlying trend of our times. When Johann Baptist Metz argues that theology today must be “sensitive to theodicy”, this highlights the same problem in a positive way. Even rescinding from such a radical contestation of the Church’s vision of the relationship between God and man, the man of today has in a very general way the sense that God cannot let most of humanity be damned. In this sense, the concern for the personal salvation of souls typical of past times has for the most part disappeared. …

Også vanskelige spørsmål om frelse og misjon tas opp i intervjuet:

… There is no doubt that on this point we are faced with a profound evolution of dogma. While the fathers and theologians of the Middle Ages could still be of the opinion that, essentially, the whole human race had become Catholic and that paganism existed now only on the margins, the discovery of the New World at the beginning of the modern era radically changed perspectives. In the second half of the last century it has been fully affirmed the understanding that God cannot let go to perdition all the unbaptized and that even a purely natural happiness for them does not represent a real answer to the question of human existence. If it is true that the great missionaries of the 16th century were still convinced that those who are not baptized are forever lost – and this explains their missionary commitment – in the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council that conviction was finally abandoned.

From this came a deep double crisis. On the one hand this seems to remove any motivation for a future missionary commitment. Why should one try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it? But also for Christians an issue emerged: the obligatory nature of the faith and its way of life began to seem uncertain and problematic. If there are those who can save themselves in other ways, it is not clear, in the final analysis, why the Christian himself is bound by the requirements of the Christian faith and its morals. If faith and salvation are no longer interdependent, faith itself becomes unmotivated.

Kristi frelsende lidelse og seierrike oppstandelse, som knuser den gamle fiendes hovmot

Katolsk, Liturgi /

Slik lyder bønner og antifoner i dagens messe, mandag i den stille uke (les alle tekstene her):

Inngangsvers
Herre, gå i rette med dem som går i rette med meg; strid mot dem som strider mot meg. Grip skjold og verge og kom meg til hjelp; si til min sjel: Jeg er din frelser.

Kollektbønn
Allmektige Gud, vi ber deg, at vi som er svake, må få ny kraft ved din enbårne Sønns lidelse, han som lever og råder…

Bønn over offergavene
Herre, ta nådig imot disse hellige mysterier, som du har gitt os for å ta bort den dom som hviler over oss. Vi ber deg, la dem bringe oss evig liv. Ved Kristus, vår Herre.

Pasjonsprefasjon II
I sannhet, det er verdig og rett, vår skyldighet og vår frelse,
at vi alltid og alle vegne takker deg,
Herre, hellige Fader, allmektige, evige Gud, ved Kristus, vår Herre.
Nå nærmer dagen seg for hans frelsende lidelse og seierrike oppstandelse,
den som knuser den gamle fiendes hovmot, og minner oss om vår gjenløsnings mysterium.
Ved ham priser englenes hærskare din majestet og gleder seg evig for ditt åsyn.
Vi ber deg, forén våre røster med dem, idet vi jublende istemmer:

Kommunionsvers
Skjul ikke ditt åsyn for meg på nødens dag. Bøy ditt øre til meg, skynd deg og svar meg når jeg roper.

Bønn etter kommunion
Herre, vi ber deg, se til ditt folk. Våk i din miskunn over de hjerter som dette sakrament hår helliget, og gi oss å verne om de midler du nådig har gitt oss til evig frelse. Ved Kristus, vår Herre.

Sannhetens medarbeidere

Paven, Teologi /

Coat_of_arms_Ratzinger_l En presteblogger i England, Fr Ray Blake, har skrevet et interessant innlegg om pave Benedikt og hans vektlegging på sannheten. Han skriver bl.a.:

… … Truth was front and centre of the Benedictine pontificate, and along with it a certain intellectual precision and a desire to define precisely what we mean and what the Church believes. This type of precision was always at the heart of Ratzinger’s ministry, it was there in his time of Prefect of the CDF. I think a great turning point occurred with his commissioning of Cardinal Schönborn to produce the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I remember speaking to a seminarian who said, «Until the Catechism was published in 1994 we were told any old rubbish was Catholic teaching, then we were able to check for ourselves. It was amazing the effect a copy of it in a seminary class room on even the most way out lecturer». Therefore 1994 became a significant turning point, when ‘the faith’ was placed in the hands of ordinary Catholics, rather than something which was claimed by ‘specialists’. Another great turning point was Dominus Jesus in 2000 which brought precision to our christology and ecclesiology.

Benedict’s pontificate was a search for truth that animated countless Catholics, I suspect this was one of the reasons for the rise in numerous Catholic citizen journalists and the flourishing of the Catholic blogosphere. More importantly I believe that it gave rise to a culture for transparency, openness and accountability in the Church. Benedict made it possible for us to ask the simple question, «Is this true?» and to expect an answer, He gave us a point of reference to understand that there were not many truths but one Truth and that this Truth is the Incarnate Word, the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ himself an objective and real presence that should be at the heart of the Church. For Benedict a denial of Truth was a denial of Christ himself, an obfuscation of it an obfuscation of Christ, a lack of clarity about it, a lack of clarity about Christ.

Truth for Benedict was the disinfecting sun-light, it was the answer to corruption and self-seeking within the Church, as much as it was to false teaching or to obfuscation or a lack of transparency or on a more mundane level bishops covering up child abuse, financial corruption or lobby groups, gay or otherwise, or plain heresy.

The search for Truth seems to have stimulated vocations to the priesthood, it certainly gave an impetus to Catholic intellectual life and the desire of Catholic intellectuals to teach and give ordinary Catholics an intellectual underpinning to their faith. … …

Siste feriebilde

Generelt /

blaa_lagune_l

Bildet over viser mine kone og meg i Den blå lagunen ikke langt fra Keflavik flyplass, vi stoppet på i Island to dager på vei fra Seattle til Oslo. I går besøkte vi Geysir og Thingvellir, og i dag var vi i Nasjonalmuseet i Reykjavik og så tre timer i Den blå lagunen.

Jeg har hatt ulønnet permisjon fra 1/11-15 til 29/2-16 og også brukt feriedager fra 2015 (i oktober) og disse to ukene i mars har jeg brukt feriedager fra 2016. Jeg har for det meste lest nokså flittig i mine liturgibøker, men siste helg i Oregon, USA, med familiebesøk, og disse to dagene på Island har virkelig vært ferie. Jeg håper også at vi stort sette har kommet over den ni timers tidsdifferansen mellom USAs vestkyst og Norge, sist natt sov vi i alle fall fra 19.30 til 07.30, bare avbrutt av to timers våken tilstand mellom 01 og 03. I natt legger vi oss ikke før kl 22, og står opp kl 05 for å nå det tidlige flyet med Icelandair til Oslo.

Fra og med fredag denne uka er det fullt arbeid for meg igjen i St Hallvard menighet.

Tradisjonell latinsk messe i Oslo Palmesøndag

TLM /

Denne søndagen feires Palmesøndag etter den tradisjonelle kalenderen, i St Hallvard kirkes kapell kl 08.00. Slik lyder messens inngangsvers:

Herre, hold ikke din hjelp borte fra meg; se nådig til mitt forsvar. Frels meg fra løvens gap og min ringhet fra enhorningens horn. Gud, min Gud, se til meg i nåde. Hvorfor har du forlatt meg? Mine synders rop er langt borte fra frelsen.

Les alle dagens tekster og bønner her – og se en oversikt over vårens messer her.

Konsert med musikk av Johann Adolf Hasse

Generelt /

I dag, siste dag i USA (i Portland, Oregon) var vi på en konsert (i tillegg til messe St Mary’s Cathedral og familiebeøk) der vi både hørte en kantate av J. S. Bach (nr. 23, Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn) og stykket «Miserere i C moll» av Johann Adolf Hasse, en komponist som ikke mange kjenner – men som vi forstod burde bli bedre kjent.

I morgen kjører vi i bil til flyplassen i Seattle/Tacoma og setter kursen hjemover – til Island i første omgang.

Tre bøker som er kritiske til deler av den nye liturgien

Katolsk, Liturgi /

Denne siste studieuka leser jeg også disse tre bøkene (som jeg alle i større eller mindre grad har lest tidligere), bøker som alle er kristiske til liturgirevisjonen etter konsilet.

lang_turning_to_the_lord Den første av disse bøkene er Turning Towards The Lord av Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, og Amazon skriver om den:

Turning towards the Lord presents an historical and theological argument for the traditional, common direction of liturgical prayer, known as “facing east”, and is meant as a contribution to the contemporary debate about the Catholic liturgy. Lang, a member of the London Oratory, studies the direction of liturgical prayer from an historical, theological, and pastoral point of view. At a propitious moment, this book resumes a debate that, despite appearances to the contrary, has never really gone away, not even after the Second Vatican Council. Historical research has made the controversy less partisan, and among the faithful there is an increasing sense of the problems inherent in an arrangement that hardly shows the liturgy to be open to the things that are above and to the world to come. … Without claiming to offer major new insights, Lang carefully presents the results of recent research and provides the material necessary for making an informed judgment. It is from such historical evidence that the author elicits the theological answers that he proposes.

Den andre boka er The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background av Klaus Gamber. Om denne skriver Alcuin Reid på Amazon:

The news that this book has been brought back into print by Roman Catholic Books is very good news indeed, for it is a seminal work which has done much to expose the extent of discontinuity in the post-conciliar reform. It stands alongside Archbishop Bugnini’s own book, The Reform of the Liturgy, as essential reading – though Gamber is certainly the more accessible of the two.

Gamber’s book is in fact two books. The first examines the overall work of the changes made to the liturgy in the 1960’s. He sees the question of whether or not the changes were an organic development as crucial. His conclusions speak for themselves: «Obviously, the reformers wanted a completely new liturgy, a liturgy that differed from the traditional one in spirit as well as in form; and in no way a liturgy that represented what the Council Fathers had envisioned, i.e., a liturgy that would meet the pastoral needs of the faithful» (p. 100). Gamber is clear and unequivocal: a large mistake has been made with regard to the liturgy, unprecedented in the Church’s history.

gamber_reform_liturgy However, it would be wrong to align Gamber with traditionalists who draw a line at 1962, 1955, or even earlier, beyond which all change is anathema. Gamber is a critical liturgical historian, as shown by his precise and detailed discussion of the question of which way the liturgy should be celebrated, which comprises the second book in this volume.

Gamber’s concerns are historical, doctrinal and pastoral. He readily accepts the appropriateness of vernacular readings, and even of the pruning of some of the later accretions to the Traditional Roman Rite (Psalm 42 from the prayers at the foot of the altar, the Offertory prayers, the last Gospel). These prudential decisions can be argued about, as they were at Trent. But he staunchly defends traditions integral to the Roman Rite throughout its history, e.g., facing eastwards and the Roman Canon, and deprecates «the cold breath of realism [that] now pervades our worship» (p.13).

Gamber speaks frankly of the destruction of the Roman Rite after the Council, the last example of which can be found in the Ordo Missae promulgated in 1965 as the reform called for by the Council. Significantly, Archbishop Bugnini dismissed this 1965 reform as insufficient because its alterations were merely «peripheral», insisting that «radical» changes were what was needed.

It is Gamber’s brave, loyal `critical traditionalism’ that gives such importance to his writing. His theses are well documented, and his research is impressive. One hopes more of his writings will be made available in translation.

crouan_liturgy_after_v2 Den tredje og siste av disse kritiske bøkene er The Liturgy After Vatican II: Collapsing or Resurgent? av Denis Crouan. Om denne kan vi lese:

Crouan, the author of several studies on liturgical questions including the book The Liturgy Betrayed presents another penetrating work on the state of the Eucharistic Liturgy, the problems and errors that still exist, and how to correct these abuses. The responses Crouan has received to all of his writing and speaking on this topic from Catholics of every stripe show the weariness and confusion of many of the faithful regarding the Sacred Liturgy.

Crouan says that the great majority of Catholics need and want, not celebrations that are “pastorally correct”, but a Eucharistic liturgy that offers all the guarantees of Catholicity and leads them to an authentic contemplation of the mysteries being celebrated. He expresses the urgency needed to examine what is going on in parish churches, and to clarify matters by acknowledging the liturgical errors in order to establish a greater fidelity to the real teaching of Vatican II and the Roman Missal.

The Liturgical Movement in the US

Liturgi /

k_pecklers_unread_vision Etter å ha lest mange bøker de siste fem månedene som presenterer Kirkens liturgi de siste mange hundre (og opp til to tusen) år, leser jeg nå den siste uka av studiepermisjonen litt nyere stoff. Bl.a. denne boka som jeg allerede har lest en gang før (for 7-8 år siden): The Unread Vision: The Liturgical Movement in the United States of America: 1926-1955 av Keith F. Pecklers, SJ.

Amazon skriver om den:

Biographies have been written of the liturgical pioneers in the United States, and scholars have studied particular aspects of the movement. This volume is the first to treat the movement synthetically. As a social history, the liturgical movement in the United States is examined not only from the perspective of the people who were behind it but also from its socio-cultural context. Grounded in the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ, the pioneers’ call for full and active liturgical participation necessarily included social responsibility. At the heart of the liturgical movement in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s was one fundamental principle: liturgy and social justice are inseparable. The author calls for a new liturgical movement and for the rediscovery of that inseparable relationship within the contemporary American church.

Nyttig og oppdatert bok om messens utvikling

Liturgi, Teologi, Økumenikk /

spinks_eucharist Do this in Remembrance of Me: The Eucharist from the Early Church to the Present Day av Bryan D. Spinks er den siste oversiktsboka over messens utvikling jeg har med meg, og jeg har lest den ferdig i dag. (De siste bøkene jeg har med meg på dette studieoppholdet handler mer om liturgisk utvikling de siste 100 år – og jeg kommer tilbake til dem.)

Jeg må si at jeg likte Spinks bok svært godt; den viser et helt oppdatert (den er fra 2013) bilde av liturgihistorien, og er skrevet på en saklig og ryddig måte. (Bl.a. slår den klart fast at den såkalte Apostoliske Tradisjon (Hippolytus) ikke kan brukes til å beskrive den liturgiske tradisjonen i Roma.) Den beskriver mange liturgiske tradisjoner (den egyptiske og den etiopiske kjente jeg f.eks. lite til fra før) og ser også på reformasjonens forandringer (her er jeg riktignok mye mer interessert i den lutherske enn den reformerte eller radikale reformasjonens liturgi). De mange fotnotene og den fyldige bibliografien gir også mye viktig informasjon.

Amazon skriver om boka:

Bryan Spinks’s book is an outstanding new manual on the historical development of the Eucharist. It is excellent not only because it connects liturgical texts and rituals with Eucharistic theologies, but also because of its wide range, varying from the New Testament data to current practice in East and West; from the early Anaphoras to present-day Dutch Table Prayers and internet liturgies; and from the ancient Ethio-Eritrean tradition to contemporaneous Pentecostalism. Bryan Spinks displays great scholarship, investigating the primary sources in many regions, languages, and eras. This will be a ‘classic’, a standard work on Eucharistic liturgies and theologies for many years to come.

Nest siste bok om messens utvikling og teologi

Liturgi, Teologi /

gihr_eucharist Den nest siste store oversiktboka over messens liturgi jeg har sett på er The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Liturgically, Dogmatically and Ascetically Explained av Fr Nicholas Gihr. Den ble utgitt i 1902, men er ny utgitt i nylig, min utgave (fotostatkopi) er fra 2013.

En anmeldelse av denne bok hos Amazon er svært positiv:

The book explains ever aspect of the Mass in minute detail. It covers topics from the virtue of religion and the meaning and efficacy of sacrifice to the two kinds of merit in the Mass, intrinsic and extrinsic–intrinsic being infinite and dependent on Christ, extrinsic being finite and dependent on man–to the use and meaning of light at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and the liturgical act of the fraction of the host and the mingling of the consecrated elements. It explains in detail every prayer and gesture of the of the ancient rite of Mass!

Dessverre fant jeg ikke selv boka særlig nyttig; jeg fant ikke noen virkelig drøfting av temaet (hva betyr det at messen er et offer?) i den, mer en oppregning av (litt slagordpregede) meninger. Det er nok også et problem at boka er over 100 år gammel.

Jeg har vært opptatt av hva det betyr at messen er et offer i flere år, og har forsøkt å finne bøker som tar opptemaet – men etter flere forsøk har jeg funnet lite nyttig. Unntaket er Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist, skrevet av professor Matthew Levering og utgitt i 2005. Denne boka leste jeg i desember i fjor og skrev om HER, HER og HER.

En del av liturgireformen etter konsilet bygger på feil premisser

Katolsk, Liturgi, Teologi /

Med denne overskrifta sikter jeg spesielt til messens (Novus Ordo) andre eukaristiske bønn, den skulle visstnok bygge på en romersk eukaristisk bønn fra 200-tallet, funnet i skriftet Den apostoliske tradisjon, og være skrevet av en prest som heter Hippolytus. Men de siste 15-20 år har man forstått at dette faktisk ikke er tilfelle. Den kjente liturgen/ teologen John F. Baldovin, S.J. (som ikke er spesielt konservativ) skrev i 2003 om dette i tidsskriftet Theological Studies, Nr. 64 – og jeg leste artikkelen i går. Fr Baldovin skriver bl.a.:

When I was a student, the commonly accepted opinion on the Apostolic Tradition ran something like this: Here we have a church order that gives us data on important ecclesiastical practices from the early-third century. The writer was a presbyter/theologian, named Hippolytus, who opposed Bishop Callistus of Rome over the latter’s laxity in readmitting sinners to church fellowship. He thus became a schismatic anti-pope, but was reconciled before his death as a martyr. A conservative, he advocated ancient usages of the Church. A crusty old parish priest unwilling to abide by his bishop’s liturgical innovations, he set down in a single document these rather antiquarian rules for liturgy and church conduct.

Nothing about this synthesis is correct. The title of the document in question is not the Apostolic Tradition. It cannot be attributed to Hippolytus, an author whose corpus of biblical commentaries and anti-heretical treatises is somewhat well known. As a matter of fact it is even doubtful whether the corpus of that writer can actually be attributed to a single writer. Finally, the document does not give us certain information about the liturgical practice of the early-third-century Roman Church.

Why then is it important to revisit the document? The importance of the so-called Apostolic Tradition consists mainly in its use by modern students in constructing the early history of the liturgy, and its use as the foundation of contemporary liturgical practice. Three examples will suffice: (1) The Second Eucharistic Prayer of the post-Vatican II Roman Rite (not to mention similar prayers used by a number of Anglican and Protestant churches) finds its inspiration in the anaphora given in chapter four of the Apostolic Tradition. (2) The ordination prayers of the Roman Rite have been influenced by the document. And (3), as a colleague once put it, the Roman Catholic adult catechumenate would never have taken its present shape without the framework provided by Hippolytus.

How, then, did we arrive at this false synthesis known as the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome and what can we say today about the putative author and provenance of the document? …

Dette er en lærd artikkel på 23 sider, med svært mange fotnoter, så jeg må hoppe over det meste og bare ta med meg Fr Baldovins avslutning:

(1) The first conclusion is obvious, namely that, in its present state, the document commonly but probably mistakenly referred to as the Apostolic Tradition does not represent the state of affairs in the Church at Rome in the early-third century. While Rome cannot be completely ruled out as one of the places that the document originated, it seems far more likely that it was “born” in the East, perhaps even Alexandria …

(2) One can speak only cautiously of authorship of a document that consists of church regulations. It is a piece of “living literature.” At the most, one can say that there are some phrases that point to the compilers’ familiarity with the work attributed to the Hippolytus of the Contra Noetum and that some elements in the document have a second-century origin.

(3) The current state of research favors a picture of church order and ministerial structure in transition, if not necessarily at Rome, then perhaps in various churches of the third century.

(4) There is a very real possibility that the Apostolic Tradition describes liturgies that never existed. A fortiori, great caution must be employed in appealing to this document to justify contemporary rites. …

(5) Many doubts have been expressed here, and many questions left open. Even if the liturgies described in the so-called Apostolic Tradition never existed in practice, they have had a major impact on the subsequent history of liturgical practice especially and perhaps even ironically in the West. The document addressed in this study has shaped the contemporary liturgies of initiation, ordination, and Eucharist. Of this there can be no doubt at all.

Les hele artikkelen her.

Jeg leste også en artikkel Paul F. Bradshaw skriver om samme emne: Liturgy in the Absence of Hippolytus

Kardinal Pell i hardt vær – gamle overgrepssaker

Generelt, Katolsk /

Den katolske Kirke har ennå ikke blitt ferdig med overgrepssakene, selv om det nå er 15 år siden oppvasken for alvor begynte i USA og enkelte andre land. Jeg forstår at det fortsatt pågårrettssaker i enkelte bispedømmer i USA, og nylig var det en stor høring i Australia, der kardinal Pell ble intervjuet ganske så grundig. John Allen skriver om dette, bl.a.:

… Pell, the Vatican’s top financial officer, was giving testimony about his response to abuse cases in the city of Ballarat, where his priestly career began and which has been an epicenter of Australia’s abuse scandals, and also about his time as archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001. He appeared via a video link from Rome, after a heart condition made the long flight home inadvisable.

The four-day hearing was not a walk in the park, and Pell undeniably took some hits.

Over and over, he insisted he was not aware of what he conceded was a “world of crimes and cover-ups” regarding pedophile priests, that he, too, had been deceived, and that at most he was guilty of being insufficiently curious. …

… Yet against all odds, there are five ways in which Pell actually may emerge in a stronger position from this experience.

First, the lengthy examination failed to produce any new “smoking gun” proving that Pell had direct knowledge of abuse and covered it up. He did admit to one instance in 1974 of being told by a student that a priest at a local school was “misbehaving with boys,” but said the student did not request action.

If there was such a bombshell, this surely would have been the moment in which it emerged.

By the end, the main charge seemed to pivot not on what Pell knew, but what he should have known — not what he did, but what he should have done. Those are serious questions, but there was no suggestion of any act that would rise to the standard of a crime, and the same questions could be asked of virtually anyone else who was in Ballarat at the time.

Second, Pell went through the strenuous process without complaint, agreeing to testify from 10 p.m. every night in Rome until 2 or 3 a.m. He was under no legal obligation to do so, which makes his cooperation meaningful.

Third, at the end Pell met with several of the 15-20 abuse survivors, relatives, and supporters who flew over from Australia for the hearing, with at least some coming away striking positive notes.

“I think he gets it,” said survivor Phil Nagle, who was abused by a priest in Ballarat while Pell was the vicar for education. “We talked about the future, not the past,” Nagle said. “We talked about compensation, about care, about what the future will be for us survivors and how the Church is going to help out from George’s level down.” That implies that Nagle sees a role for Pell as part of the solution, not just the problem.

Fourth, Pell pledged his support for the survivors and for recovery efforts from the abuse scandals, including offering to help create an Australian research center for abuse prevention and detection.

Fifth, at the end of the hearing, Pell did not use comments to journalists to issue laments about the unfairness of it all or to suggest that he’s some kind of martyr. …

Bøker av Os Guinness som betydde mye for meg

Apologetikk, Generelt /

Jeg skrev nettopp om en bok jeg har kjøpt av Os Guinness. Her er tre viktige bøker jeg leste av samme forfatter mellom 1975 og 1985:

guinness_in_two_minds

Boka In Two Minds kom ut i 1976, og jeg fikk tak i den ganske raskt og leste den med stor interesse. Boka handler om hva man gjør når man begynner åtvile – på den kristne tro, eller andre ting – man flykter ikke fra tvilen,og undertrykker den ikke. Man bør møte tvilen med åpne øyne, finne informasjon, be om råd- for å finne ut hva somer sant. Amazon skriver bl.a. dette om boka:

The author describes the purpose of his book: «Well, I myself didn’t have a lot of the doubts described in the book, but I met so many people who were either ashamed, embarrassed, or felt guilty about doubting. And I wanted to relieve them of that. Doubt is not the same as unbelief. You have faith in Christ, which is sure of Christ, and you have unbelief which, sadly, is not sure of Christ. And doubt is a halfway house. And all the languages of the world as well as the Scriptures had this idea of doubt in two minds. So like a coin spinning it will come down heads or tails. It has got to be resolved, but you don’t need to feel bad about doubt. You just need to resolve it.» – «We do not trust God because he guides us; we trust and then are guided, which means that we can trust God even when we do not see guided by him. Faith may be in the dark about guidance, but it is never in the dark about God» (p. 261). In fact, «God proves not only better to us than our worst fears but better to us than our wildest dreams» (p. 184). In fact, how we handle doubt is largely a reflection of the health of our faith because «since the object of Christian faith is God, to believe or disbelieve is everything. Thus the market value of doubt for the Christian is extremely high. Find out how seriously a believer takes his doubts and you have the index of how seriously he takes his faith» (p. 31).

guinness_dust_of_death_2 Boka The Dust of Death leste jeg på slutten av 70-tallet, og den gir en god oversikt over alle religionene og -ismene som hadde kommet til vesten på 60-tallet. Amazon skriver bl.a. slik om boka:

In the immediate aftermath of the 1960s, Guinness writes in the Preface that «what we were witnessing … was the gradual disillusionment of a generation, even of a culture. Ideals had grown so distant they were barely distinguishable from illusions. … In more than one hundred sections (!) with provocative chapter titles such as «The Striptease of Humanism,» «The Twilight of Western Thought,» «The Importance of Futurology,» «The Angry Young Men,» «The Psychedelics and God,» and «Constructive Christian Radicalism,» Guinness attempts a wide-ranging analysis of modern culture, proposing in the end Christianity: «this uniquely ‘impossible’ faith—with a God who is, with an Incarnation that is earthly and historical, with a salvation that is at cross-purposes with human nature, with a Resurrection that blasts apart the finality of death—is able to provide an alternative to the sifting, settling dust of death and through a new birth open the way to new life.»

guinness_gravedigger_file_2 Boka The Gravedigger File var kanskje ikke så viktig for meg, men den peker på en del problemer som den moderne kristenheten har. Amazon skriver bl.a. slik om den:

Os Guinness, in this work, presents the Church in America and the problems that beset it. All written in a series of communiques from the enemy «Directorate.» It has the same feel of The Screwtape Letters, and a fascinating idea of the way of the «Third Fool» as being the way to break through the present-day irrelevance, bickering, factionalism, marketing, and paranoia that are strangling the lifeblood out of the Church in America.

Klauser: A Short History of the Western Liturgy

Liturgi /

klauser_western_liturgy Jeg leser i dag ferdig Theodor Klauser: A Short History of the Western Liturgy. Det er ei nokså kort bok (litt over 200 s) og en del av stoffet er godt kjent for meg, men han skriver bl.a. en del interessante ting om hvordan Tridentinerkonsilets liturgireformer ble gjennomført. På Amazon kan vi bl.a. lese dette om boka:

Dr. Klauser presents a classical interpretation of the changes and developments in the liturgy from the time of Christ to Vatican Council II. The work is divided into four periods which have become standard designations: from the Ascension of Jesus to Gregory the Great, «creative beginnings,» (30-590); from Gregory the Great to Gregory VII, «expansion under Franco-German preeminence,» (590-1073); from Gregory VII to the Council of Trent, «luxuriant growth,» (1073-1545); and from Trent to Vatican II, «unification and regulation,» (1545-1963). Each period is introduced with a concise summary followed by Dr. Klauser’s discussion.

Her kan man lese et svært grundig referat av boka.

Boka kom ut i 1965, og er langt på vei preget av de overoptimistiske forsøkene på å reformere liturgien. Klauser mener bl.a. at den gamle messen som den nye eukaristiske bønn II bygger, på virkelig går tilbake til Roma og til Hippolytus. Jeg er derimot blitt overbevist om at det ikke er tilfelle, slik Wikipedia kortfattet uttrykker det:

… In recent scholarship, it has been suggested that the attribution to Hippolytus (is incorrect) and suggests that the Apostolic Tradition is a composite work modified over the centuries. According to this view, the anaphora probably attained its final form around the mid of the 4th century AD and it shall not to be related to Rome but to West Syria or even to Egypt. Some scholars also suggest that the Apostolic Tradition portrays a liturgy that was never celebrated. …

Dette blir grundigere diskutert av Paul Bradshaw og av John Baldovin, S.J.

Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion

Apologetikk, Generelt /

guinness_fools_talk Os Guinness er en av personene knyttet til Francis Schaffer (som jeg skrev om i går) som betydde aller mest for meg – riktig nok mest for en del år siden. Han skrev i fjor ei bok jeg nå har kjøpt (i Kindle format): Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion.

På Amazon kan vi lese følgende om boka:

In our post-Christian context, public life has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that people are open, interested and needy for spiritual insight when increasingly most people are not. Our urgent need, then, is the capacity to persuade—to make a convincing case for the gospel to people who are not interested in it.

In his magnum opus, Os Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming and preaching, protesting and picketing. But we are strikingly weak in persuasion—the ability to talk to people who are closed to what we are saying. Actual persuasion requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, «Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we.»

Following the tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on listeners’ assumptions to surprise them with signals of transcendence and the credibility of the gospel.

This book is the fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers of our era.

Boka har fått flere priser, bl.a. hos Christianity Today. Og her intervjues Os Guinness om boka.

Francis Schaeffer: Skjebnetime

Apologetikk, Generelt /

skjebnetime Jeg ble for noen få dager siden kontaktet ang en mulig nyutgivelse av Francis Schaeffers bok Skjebnetime, som jeg oversatte til norsk i 1985. Francis Schaeffer og hans arbeid på L’Abri betydde mye for meg i mange år, og da jeg ble kontaktet om boka, dukket mange gamle minner opp (jeg møtte bl.a. min kone på L’Abri i Sveits i 1985). Tidligere i dag leste jeg bl.a. om en debatt om Francis Schaeffer i Norge i 2011 – se her.

Boka ble visst utgitt på nytt i 2010, men når er visst også denne utgaven utsolgt. Slik skrev jeg i mars 2007, da jeg la denne boka ut på nett – HER:

Vinteren 1985 arbeidet jeg med å oversette denne boka – «The Great Evangelical Disaster» – av Francis Schaeffer fra engelsk til norsk. Boka kom ut på norsk i 1986 under navnet “Skjebnetime”, og det er nå mange år siden den har vært mulig å få kjøpt.

Boka var skrevet av Francis Schaeffer i 1984, en amerikaner som startet et kristent studiesenter i Sveits, L’Abri – og som i mine unge år var viktig for min teologiske og intellektuelle utvikling. Jeg leste alle de 20 bøkene han nevner i forordet på slutten av 70-tallet

Jeg har sett på boka igjen nå, og den tar egentlig opp svært aktuelle spørsmål om normoppløsningen i vår tid, og hvordan kristne kirker og enkeltpersoner skal kunne stå fast på Kirkens gamle syn.

Jeg er selv blitt katolikk siden jeg oversatte boka, og vil derfor naturlig nok ikke dele Schaeffers syn på f.eks. reformasjonen, men det er fortsatt mange ting i denne boka som jeg vurdere som svært nyttige og viktige.

Hele boka kan leses her.

Tilbake i Oslo om to uker

Generelt /

Jeg har nå stort sett vært bortreist siden midten av oktober, bare avbrutt av to korte opphold i Oslo. Til sammen vil jeg være borte litt over fem måneder, av disse er det fire måneder (ulønnet) studiepermisjon og fem uker ferie (fra 2015 og 2016). Forrige helg var nokså feriepreget, siden det var min kones fødselsdag og store deler av hennes familie bor her i Oregon – vi feiret henne fire hele dager til ende.

Nå har vi ca 10 dager der jeg skal ha min ‘leseinnspurt’; det er fortsatt 3-4 liturgiske bøker jeg skal lese, i tillegg til de ca 30 jeg allerede har lest (og stort sett skrevet om her på bloggen). Vi reiser om knapt to uker hjem via Island (Icelandair fra Seattle) og da stopper vi der i to dager på vei hjem til Oslo. Og så er denne (sannsynligvis) siste studiepermisjonen over – det var 10 år siden jeg sist hadde seks måneder til studier, og før det noen måneder tidlig på 90-tallet – og jeg kommer hjem til Oslo og til arbeidet i menigheten.

Lest ferdig The Shape of the Liturgy

Liturgi /

shape_of_liturgy Jeg har nå lest ferdig den ganske berømte The Shape of the Liturgy, av Dom Gregory Dix, og er faktisk ikke så veldig fornøyd med boka.

Jeg syntes faktisk han var ganske preget av det man kaller arkeologisme, som pave Pius XII fordømte på 50-tallet, men som en del liturger likevel var og er påvirket av. F.eks. tenker Dix seg at på 100- og 200-tallet – da han mener at ordets gudstjeneste (synaxi) og eukaristien ble feiret separat – kunne søndagens eukaristi tidlig om morgenen var kanskje ikke mer enn 20 minutter, og være et nokså typisk måltidsfellesskap (selv om offertanken også var med). Preken (og bibellesninger) skulle altså holdes på et annet tidspunkt, men det har jeg nok litt vanskelig for å se for meg. Dix mener også at alterets posisjon fram til ca 700 var at biskopen/presten var vendt mot folket (men han skriver litt om dette emnet).

I det hele tatt er Dix nesten bare opptatt av det som skjedde fra til år 600 – selv om han skriver litt om forandringene rundt år 800 (med Karl den store) og enda mindre om utviklingen senere i middelalderen – og det han skriver om de første århundrene i øst og vest virker ganske spekulativt.

En ganske grundig anmeldelse av boka skriver bl.a.:

… Later scholarship has considered Dix to be near the mark but not always on it. For example, Dix argued that the Eucharistic Prayer grew out of a solemn three-part Jewish prayer, the Birkat ha-Mazon, or blessing after a meal, and, in particular, out of its second paragraph of “thanksgivings.” More recent liturgical scholarship has sought its origin in all three paragraphs of this ancient prayer, which, however, did not harden into prescribed forms among the Jews until the end of the first Christian millennium. This makes it difficult to reconstruct more than an outline of the original prayer. At best, it can be summarized as blessing-thanksgiving-supplication, and modern scholarship has criticized Dix for assuming, in a Jewish prayer context, the equivalence of blessing (Hebrew, berakah) and thanksgiving (Hebrew, yadah).

Dix also assumed, following late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German scholarship, that in the early Church the celebrant of the Eucharistic liturgy faced the congregation over the altar. The popularity of his book did a great deal to foster that practice among Anglicans and certain “catholicizing” clergy and congregations among Protestants such as Lutherans and Methodists.

It may have had a similar effect on Roman Catholics in laying the groundwork for the “reversal of the altars” that swept like a tidal wave over the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church from 1965 onwards. But this was more likely due to the influence of German and French liturgical institutes (most of whose “experts” were “popularizers” of liturgical scholarship rather than scholars themselves). Also, the view that “facing the people” was the “primitive practice” had been enshrined in the English-speaking world in The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913, and had come to be regarded as historical fact.

However, this view is now acknowledged to be mistaken by most contemporary liturgical scholars: The universal early Christian practice of facing east for prayer applied also, and especially, during the celebration of the Eucharist. ….

…. Some have marveled at how much he was able to do by way of digestion, assimilation, and “regurgitation” under highly adverse conditions, even if at some haste. So his scholarship has been characterized as brilliant but at the same time “erratic” or even “slipshod.”

Les hele denne anmeldelsen her.

Preken i requiemmessen til høyesterettsdommer Antonin Scalia

Generelt, Katolsk /

funeral_scalia

First Things gjengir her hele preken til Fr Paul Scalia, som han holdt i sin fars begravelse for noen dager siden

We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us, known only by reputation to even more; a man loved by many, scorned by others; a man known for great controversy, and for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.

It is He Whom we proclaim: Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of the Father. It is because of Him, because of His life, death and resurrection that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, but in confidence we commend Antonin Scalia to the mercy of God.

Scripture says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. And that sets a good course for our thoughts and our prayers here today. In effect, we look in three directions: to yesterday, in thanksgiving; to today, in petition; and into eternity with hope.

We look to Jesus Christ yesterday—that is, to the past—in thanksgiving for the blessings God bestowed upon Dad. In the past week, many have recounted what Dad did for them, but here today, we recount what God did for Dad; how He blessed him. We give thanks, first of all, for the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our Lord died and rose not only for all of us, but also for each of us. And at this time we look to that yesterday of His death and His resurrection, and we give thanks that He died and rose for Dad. Further, we give thanks that Jesus brought him to new life in Baptism, nourished him with the Eucharist, and healed him in the confessional. We give thanks that Jesus bestowed upon him 55 years of marriage to the woman he loved—a woman who could match him at every step, and even hold him accountable.

God blessed Dad with a deep Catholic faith—the conviction that Christ’s presence and power continue in the world today through his Body, the Church. …..

The New York Times skriver også om denne begravelsen, bl.a.:

The nation’s leaders, including justices, judges, lawmakers, current and former vice presidents and a presidential candidate, gathered for a mostly solemn two-hour funeral Mass. The longest-serving member of the current Supreme Court, Justice Scalia died at age 79 last weekend at a Texas ranch after nearly 30 years on the highest bench. …

The Shape of the Liturgy

Liturgi /

shape_of_liturgy Jeg er nå i gang men en kjent «murstein» (750 sider), nemlig The Shape of the Liturgy, av Dom Gregory Dix – utgitt i 1945, men i ny utgave (med ny innledning) fra 2005. Amazon skriver om boka:

Dom Gregory Dix’s classic account of the development of the Eucharist rite continues to be the definitive and authoritative work on the subject. He presents his massive scholarship in lively and non technical language for all who wish to understand their worship in terms of the framework from which it has evolved. He demonstrates the creative force of Christianity over the centuries through liturgy and the societies it has moulded. His great work has for nearly fifty years regularly been quoted for its devotional as well as its historical value, and has regularly attracted new readers. In this book for the first time, critical studies in the learned periodicals of many countries have been carefully sifted and the results arranged to give a clear picture of the development of the Eucharistic rite.

Her er innholdsfortegelsen:

Introduction. The Purpose of this Essay
I. The Liturgy and the Eucharistic Action
II. The Performance of the Liturgy
III. the Classical Shape of the Liturgy – I
IV. Eucharist and Lord’s Supper
V. The Classical Shape of the Liturgy – II
VI. The Pre-Nicene Background of the Liturgy
VII. The Eucharistic Prayer
VIII. Behind the Local Traditions
IX. The Meaning of the Eucharist
X. The Theology of Consecration
XI. The Sanctification of Time
XII. The Development of Ceremonial
XIII. The Completion of the Shape of the Liturgy
XIV. Variable Prayers at the Eucharist
XV. The Mediaeval Development
XVI. The Reformation and the Anglican Liturgy
XVII. ‘Throughout All Ages, World Without End’
Index

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