While researching for my Vatican II paper on the liturgical reform, I ran across a little book by the French theologian Denis Crouan called The Liturgy Betrayed, which ironically enough has a picture of St. Thomas Becket's murder on the cover.

The book, published in translation by Ignatius in 2000, is only about 100 pages or so, but is hands down the best analysis I have seen of the rationale behind the changes introduced into the 1969 Missal - both additions and deletions - and explaining why such changes are in harmony with the liturgical tradition. It also gives a well deserved smackdown to the "spirit of Vatican II" crowd of liturgists and bishops who cannot read documents as well as the "traditionalist" camp and their rather tenuous understanding of liturgical history.

Crouan has also written a book called The History and The Future of the Roman Liturgy, which in light of the aforementioned work I am probably going to pick up.

Interestingly enough, Franciscan does not have either book in its holdings while Athenaeum of Ohio, which includes Mt. St. Mary's Seminary of the West, has both.

- Posted by at 6:19 PM

I've never known the title to this work until it happened to be cited on the back end of a Buffalo Sabres tribute video on the web, even though I've heard the chorus numerous times and do like O Fortuna, the opening piece. I can't be sure, but I've always thought Liberi Fatali, another favorite Latin chorus of mine, was influenced by it.

Anyway, I purchased a recording of it, so I may post a review at some point in the future.

- Posted by at 10:51 PM

Unusual circumstances took me to see United 93 tonight. I think it was quite well done and is a fitting tribute to those who were killed by the terrorists on 9/11. Definitely not a film for the faint of heart, it was quite intense as the plot moved along, and the ending is handled pretty well.

It wasn't a tear-jerker for me, if only because the original 9/11 events never unsettled me. That doesn't speak particularly well for my state of mind at the time, but such is the reality of things. One of these days, it may hit, but that day has not yet come.

It's not so much that I don't see the danger staring us in the face, but that I don't have a tangible impression of it. God often needs to whack me as it is to grab my attention, and this is no different. Knowledge is one thing - experience is entirely another.

- Posted by at 10:22 PM

Queen Latifah's new movie, Last Holiday, was certainly a lot better than I had been expecting. In a way, I'm quite surprised it earned a PG-13 rating, I would have given it a PG myself, since this had some of the least suggestive sexual references and mildest language of any comedy in recent memory.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, which was funny, moving, and flowed well. There was really only one part of the film where the plot *really* had to make a stretch, and I think it shows up on screen pretty blatantly. But it's pretty early on and easily forgotten by what follows. It's one of the best films I've seen in a while not based on a classic book.

- Posted by at 7:37 PM

And what good's a life that leaves nothing behind
Not a thought or a dream that might echo in time?
The years and the hours, the seconds and minutes
And everything my life has placed in it betrayed.

The above is sung by Beethoven in a piece called What is Eternal? in Beethoven's Last Night. It reminds me of a professor of philosophy whom I had in a class entitled The Meaning of Life. The professor's quintessential example of a life with maximal meaning was Beethoven, primarily because his definition was maximization of potential. In this particular song, Beethoven has been visited by the devil and told he can only save his soul if he gives up his life's work - hence the question above.

The scary thing is that the professor (an atheist) and I agreed more often than we didn't, particularly since the extrapolation of his thesis is that actions matter and idle time doesn't contribute much to one's life. Some time, I should scan over the old class recordings and notes, although it was pretty depressing that at least half my peers were willing to buy into the idea that fantasy, if pleasurable, is preferable to reality.

Sidenote - the professor's likely answers to some questions posed by Beethoven elsewhere in that song (it is sort of schizophrenic in its themes):

I stare in the dark, thinking what is eternal?
The man or the moment? The act or the reason?

I can't see him answering anything but the man and the act.

- Posted by at 2:11 AM

The Chronicles of Narnia is now playing at the local theatre, so I figured I'd head on over tonight to grab the Monday dollar-off discount.

Now, this theater is small and normally only has two showings per night on its screen - since Narnia is longer, they only have one per night with a matinee on the weekend - and is several weeks behind the normal release of movies in the larger chains in the area. The upside is that their prices are generally about half what I would pay at the Regal.

You'd have thought this was opening night instead of a Monday night after the film's already been out over a month - I got there 15 minutes early to find the house was already a third full. So many people came, they pushed the start of the film back 10 minutes to clear the line, and by the time those last people got in, they were heading down to the second row for about the only open seats left. I'd guess attendance was nearly 500 people, close to a sell-out.

Maybe there is something to the lower prices. I paid just $3.00 to get in, $2.50 for a medium popcorn, $2.00 for a medium drink, and $1.50 for a medium candy - $9.00 in all. That's barely admission elsewhere.

- Posted by at 1:10 AM

We went off to see the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe tonight, and overall, I think it was quite good. The only point that I would have liked to see in the movie that wasn't there was some mention of the Emperor, who is the one who wrote the law of the deep magic that required Aslan's sacrifice, and I didn't quite like how they folded the deeper magic into the deep magic, but these are relatively minor complaints, the basic message of that sequence stayed intact.

Now I'll be waiting for the next installment in the series.

- Posted by at 2:19 AM

Harry Turtledove has written a number of books dealing with alternative history. I have only dealt with the Great War and American Empire series, which are both about a world where the Confederate States won the Civil War.

For preliminaries, Britain and France chose to aid the CSA, hence the loss. Lincoln thus falls to a presidential washout, and the Republican party collapses after a future president of theirs, Blaine, loses the Second Mexican War.

The scene in 1914 is quite different. In the USA, the 2 major parties are the Democrats and the Socialists, and as you might expect, all the conservative politicians are Democrats, the liberal ones Socialists. The USA is allied with Germany and Austria. The CSA is allied with Canada, Britain, and France. The presidential matchup is Teddy Roosevelt of the USA against Woodrow Wilson of the CSA.

The series is quite riveting and also interesting for the political dynamics, since one gets the impression things could plausibly have gone the way they are described in the books. As a tidbit, because of how events play out in this alternate world, the Nazi-style government ends up not being Germany.

I'd encourage people to go read the series. The books do get a little too involved with the sexual lives of their characters, but not too bad. Just keep the books out of the hands of little ones.

- Posted by at 11:44 PM

Recently, I decided to look up the origins of the word "Paladin." The term derives from two Latin words, "palatinus," which means "attached to the palace," and "Palatine," which refers to one of the seven hills of the city of Rome, the one upon which the palaces were built.

A paladin is supposed to be something of a knight in shining armor, righting wrongs and of strong moral integrity. I've always liked the idea of a paladin, and I like it even more now because paladins are quite a Christian thing, excepting the D&D reinvention.

The story of the paladins is part of French history (when they actually could still win battles), particularly of Charlemagne's court. While it parallels the Arthurian legends of Britain somewhat, the Paladin epics are strongly Christian in character, while the Arthurian are not.

Those wanting to read of paladins should check out Ludovico Ariosto or Torquato Tasso, as they are the main authors of paladin lore, according to Wikipedia.

- Posted by at 9:21 PM