Posts By Date - Catholic Herald

January 16, 2020

The old approach to confirmation isn’t working

January 16, 2020

It is hazardous to write about children because you risk condescending, or making fun of them in that “kids say the funniest things” way – which in no time will curl the toes of all involved; or you invade their privacy. “Kids” itself sounds patronising to me. So with this in mind I asked our

Prize crossword 0627

January 16, 2020

Cryptic across 1 Midpoint of an OT empire? (6) 4 Boy, with setter aboard, makes for OT summit (6) 9 Historian implied American connection (7) 10 Eventually let Brexit leader in London borough (5) 11 Old West town from a Mailer novel (7) 12 It’s Amos’ place to enumerate koalas passing through (5) 13 Confined

Mass readings

January 16, 2020

Ordinary Form Divine Office Week II Sunday, January 19: The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 49:3, 5-6; Ps 40; 1 Cor 1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34 Monday, January 20: Weekday in Ordinary Time or St Fabian, St Sebastian 1 Sm 15:16-23; Ps 50; Mk 2:18-22 Tuesday, January 21: St Agnes 1 Sm 16:1-13; Ps 89; Mk 2:23-28 Wednesday,

How to… Be a coeliac Catholic

January 16, 2020

Bread made for celebrating the Eucharist must be unleavened and made solely from wheat flour mixed with water, according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. This traditional norm creates problems for Catholics with gluten intolerance, such as those who suffer from Coeliac disease and for whom ingesting a host can trigger stomach pains,

The Benedict-Sarah book shows how to defend priestly celibacy

January 16, 2020

Various things conspire to bring on the January blues, like the fact that I have paid several hundred pounds in motoring fines in the past month. Not, I hasten to add, because of some violation of the law, but for forgetting to pay tolls or congestion charges, or in one case because a parking permit

This Sunday, listen out for a ‘liturgical unicorn’

January 16, 2020

Fifty years ago, Paul VI implemented a new form of the Roman Missal, a departure from the tradition of centuries not just in forms and gestures, but also in the content of our prayers. Vatican II required that in the liturgical reform nothing should be changed that wasn’t truly for the good of the people

Where to look when we feel we’ve laboured in vain

January 16, 2020

The Second Sunday of the Year Is 49:3 & 5-6; 1 Cor 1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34 (Year A) “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I shall be glorified.’ I was honoured in the eyes of the Lord; my God was my strength.” The words of the prophet Isaiah present the

Will there be dentist drills in heaven?

January 16, 2020

Divine Bodies By Candida Moss Yale, 195pp, £35/$45 Most Christians would agree that heaven is a place that can’t be conceptualised from our feeble earthly perspective. But it has always been tempting to make the imaginative leap and the issue of bodily resurrection has been a tricky topic. Many thinkers have assumed that some continuity

How a militaristic goddess became the Venus of Western art

January 16, 2020

Venus and Aphrodite By Bettany Hughes Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 241pp, £12.99/$17 Whether we know her as the Roman Venus or the Greek Aphrodite, the goddess of love and lust is as powerful today as she has always been. Bettany Hughes traces Venus/Aphrodite back to her beginnings and follows her career over millennia, right up to

A mournful travelogue from Cologne to Isfahan

January 16, 2020

Along the Trenches: a Journey Through Eastern Europe to Isfahan By Navid Kermani Polity, 358pp, £18.99/$24.50 Navid Kermani, born and resident in Germany but of Iranian ancestry, is the best kind of scholar: one who writes with a touch as elegant as it is light. His reputation as an expert in Islamic studies and his

What is Notre-Dame without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

January 16, 2020

Notre-Dame By Ken Follet Harper, 80pp, £9.99/$17 Before he has reached the 10th sentence of his new book, Notre-Dame, the bestselling novelist Ken Follett has claimed the cathedral on the Île-de-la-Cité as “one of the greatest achievements of European civilisation”. Watching it aflame on his television screen on that momentous night last year, and hearing

The Aeronauts is baloney – but it’s thrilling to watch

January 16, 2020

On my last trip to London, I visited St Paul’s and ascended the 528 steps to the Golden Gallery, 280 feet from the cathedral floor. It took my breath away and, truth be told, scared me half to death. The Aeronauts, on Amazon Prime, tells the story of meteorologist James Glaisher and aeronaut (ie balloonist)