Sunday, April 8, 2007

Consummatum est

The thesis is done and at the bindery. I was in the middle of posting on this topic yesterday when my computer crashed, so today's post is but a brief word, hopefully to be published before the hard drive shuts down again.

Anyway, at least with the thesis done, the way ahead looks clear for a couple of months until the Viva voce (the 'defence' as the Frogs so dramatically call it). Reading University have offered me a temporary position for September, and the fog of the last few months can have a chance to clear away.

It's all come a bit to late to allow me to appreciate Holy Week and the Sacred Triduum this year. Still, sometimes we can carry the burdens, and sometimes we must let them be carried for us. The eager and thoughtful students of Blackfriars in Oxford have done some of the carrying for me this week, with their recordings of the most important melodies in the Church's liturgy. God bless Friar Robert Gay O.P. When set to melodies written for Latin, the English words can sound strange. But the sentiments are the same, very much the same, and more eloquently expressed here than anywhere else.

Everyone's world begins with a mystical belief, though not all mystical beliefs are the same, and not all mystical believers realise they are mystics. Still, I've yet to meet a human who makes sense of the world in any other way.

From Good Friday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRAQv2n0BJc&NR=1

From Easter Vigil: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkle6URiM4s