Diary opening New Year

Journal for 13th Jan 2008. 1st Sun Ord Time.

Two Weeks of New Year have already got away on me.
Abbot Raymond is expected home from Our Lady of the Angels cistercian Monastery, Nigeria on Wednesday.

We are remembering Francis Ricardo who died 7 January 2008.

Frank was born 5 Oct 1936. He and his his late brother, Joe, came to work at the construction of the new Abbey at Nunraw in 1962. As master-terrazo workers thay had already been working as voluteers. Until his sudden death he had been a resident in one of the cottages of the property. In later years Frank took up work as a male nurse in the Edinburgh hospitals. Not unrelated to that occupation, he became a regular as a Brancardier helping the sick in the annual pilgrimages to Lourdes. He was a member of the Knights of St. Columba. He was well known at St. Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Until the present Christmas and New Year he continued as a faithful Passkeepr at the nine o’clock Sunday Mass.
It would be true to say that Nunraw Abbey became, as it were, the load star, of his wider interestes directed to the Archdicese, Lourdes and the Church.
He was 71. May he rest in peace.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Note the source of the text in the Post for the 1st Jan 2008, Solemnity of the Mother of God, - Origin of the Church in the Marian Consent. (Von Balthaser Reader, trs R. J. Daly 1982, p.213, §49).

Following Von Balthasar might seem a lonely road to travell to find hidden treasures of the spiritual journey. I am happy to discover that this particular less travelled road is now a major Internet highway of interest in Websites and Bloggs.

At the Mass for the Guesthouse this morning I found myself drawing indirectly from Von Balthaser.

The Liturgy for the Baptism of the Lord brings in the links with the Anointing of the Messih from the Acts and the fourfold Gospel account of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. Since all four Evangelist record the occasion they obviously took it as very important. It is another example of the immersion in the Scriptures which Von Balthasar takes as bedrock in any Christian formation. Side by side with this constant imbibing of the Word he states the necessary context of worship, the liturgical life of accompaniment of people in the Church.

An exclusive concentration on the Bible can rather lopsided. Very devoted scholars can spend a lifetime on the details. The discussion regarding Von Balthasar’s Bible hermeneutics brings in, for one example, the question of ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’. The issue can be very complex, fragmentary analysis of the parts or the synthesising of the whole OT & NT. I suggested that for simplicity’s sake I would invent my own solution and call it CHRONIC, (laugther from the guests). That is, a daily, ‘chronic’, devotion to the Word that has to be embodied in worship, in the Eucharist. It is a big loss for those who claim that they only need nature to enable them to pray in the woods and skies and don’t need to go to Church. What a wonderful life it is to enjoy the framework of Word and Worship in community of the Church . The monastic observance is an obviously privileged environment for this enterprise.