Exciting Times...

I received a rather exciting item in the post this morning: a proof copy of a chapter I wrote about St. Anne Line for a book on various heroic women. I'm not entirely sure whether I'm supposed to do anything with it, it just came with a compliment slip from the publisher, the contents pages and the biographies of all the contributors as they will appear in the book.

The book is called English Catholic Heroines, and it is edited by Joanna Bogle (of Auntie Joanna Writes fame) and published by Gracewing. Glancing at the other chapter titles, I was delighted to see that Fiorella Nash and Sr. Andrea Fraile have also contributed chapters.

In addition to the "usual suspects" such as St. Margaret Clitherow and St. Margaret Ward, there are a lot of women I'd never heard of, so it will be quite a fascinating read... though I shall avoid reading my own chapter: I hate reading stuff I've written.

I have to say that I hadn't realised that it was going to be quite such a large book - 23 heroines in 22 chapters - but I suspect all the chapters are pretty short. I have no idea about its price, or whether it will be available in hardback first (or at all!) but, looking at Gracewing's website, there is a similar (presumably paperback) volume called English Catholic Heroes, edited by John Joliffe, and priced at £9.99.

I think the book launch is some time in October, probably in central London - watch this space!

Faith Magazine Publications...

Sir Dan of the Nesbitry and Fr. Hugh MacKenzie were very keen for me to use my blogging skills to advertise various things published by the Faith Movement. The were so keen, in fact, that they bribed me with free copies of the last two issues of Faith Magazine.

Unwisely, I admitted that I did prefer reading hard copies, and that I had had a subscription, but that it had lapsed. This was like a red rag to a bull, and I soon found myself with Sir Dan twisting one arm behind my back, and Fr. Hugh placing a pen in the other... I took the path of least resistance, and filled in a subscriptions card.

To be fair, the Faith Magazine is particularly good value compared to other theological works: it is £25 per year (6 issues) in the UK, €37 in Europe and US $66 if you want it sent via airmail. The student rate is a derisory £17 (€22 or US $34) for a year's subscription. As well as interesting, informative and intellectually challenging articles, there are regular columns such as Cutting Edge and Notes from across the Atlantic and the Letters section.

The Reasons for Believing series of pamphlets is very popular: there are currently six titles covering the fundamentals of the Catholic faith, including Can we be sure God exists? and The Disaster of Sin. The latest pamphlet is The Church: Christ's Voice to the World, which will help anyone seeking to answer that hoary old chestnut - "Well, I do believe in Jesus, but I don't believe in all that Church nonsense, it's just not necessary..."

The latest resource, hot off the press is the third DVD produced by Faith: The Bible: The Word of God. Dan was determined that I should get a photo for the blog of the DVD and the pamphlet which accompanies it...

All of the publications and DVDs mentioned, and many more, are available from the website... unfortunately the site is down for tweaking at the moment, but the plan is that it will be up and running again after the weekend.

UPDATE: Yes, the site is back up and running...

Photos From The Summer Session...

I noticed that there was a comment in the programme to the effect that photos would be taken throughout the conference, and would be put up on the Faith website. This made me very happy, as I didn't need to worry about getting "permission" from people - though the posed shots were usually shown to the victims (sorry, I meant to say subjects) and the right of veto given... allowing me to get a better shot if they had objections to the first! Sir Dan of the Nesbitry lay in wait for unsuspecting customers by his publications stall, and relieved them of money that would otherwise have been wasted on beer... so it really was an act of charity...

Fr. Mike Dolman agreed to pose for a photo, as did the two young ladies shown... I asked three other young people if they'd be willing to be snapped, but the ravages of the previous night's entertainment meant they weren't too keen... I told them they'd only be let off if they found me some substitute victims, which they did, and pretty quickly!

Bishop O'Donoghue was definitely not camera-shy, and was happy to have his photo taken - he's seen here outside the Chapel after Mass, along with Fr. Hugh MacKenzie, Editor of the excellent Faith Magazine.

Posed shots are ok, but photos taken when the subjects are unaware of the danger (sorry, camera) can give a better idea of the atmosphere. Here, Fr. Stephen Boyle can be seen deep in conversation with two young people. Minutes later, he tried to convince me that I'd need written permission from him before I could use the photo... I reminded him that, given his previous ambition to be the most-blogged-about non-blogging priest, he was pretty much without a leg to stand on.

Richard Marsden, author of the excellent blog, Bashing Secularism, was also happy to pose for a photo. I tried to engineer something a little more "natural," but the sight of a camera made all three turn to face me head-on... and a posed photo seemed better than no photo at all, so I snapped away. Richard had read of my newly-awakened interest in cricket, and he was keen to know who my local team was, and whether I had any cricketing "pin-ups" yet... Alas, I had to admit ignorance on both counts: I suspect my local team is Kent...

Meals involved a queue through a tunnel-like corridor: the queue also provided quite a good opportunity for a photo or two, and I discovered that the flash gives a rather ghastly hue to people's faces. Fr. Luiz Ruscillo, shown talking to Alison Smith (who organises the Faith Community Newsletter) didn't believe me, and complained that the flash hadn't worked... so I took another photo. He immediately realised that I did actually know what I was talking about, and I deleted the second photo...

Behind Alison, talking to another priest (I think it's Fr. Ian Vane) and Fr. Hugh MacKenzie (behind Fr. Luiz), you can see Fr. John Boyle, who has returned to blogging after an absence from the Blogosphere. His return was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm, with many, many comments from people telling how much his posts had encouraged them in their faith.

Fr. Dylan James was also happy to be snapped. I have to say that, while grateful that others are willing to be photographed, I cannot understand the appeal. I loathe having my photo taken, and will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid being captured on film. There have been a couple of occasions when, out of courtesy, I have submitted to being photographed (smiling through gritted teeth), but the results are ghastly, and I've become a lot more determined to avoid the camera.

Not so Sr. Andrea Fraile, of the wonderful Sisters of the Gospel of Life. To be fair, I think she was waiting for the red light to come on before the flash, and intended to duck when it did... but, of course, I don't use a flash, and she was pretty aghast to realise that she'd been caught... but I decided that the photo was too good to delete...

And finally, I got a shot of His Hermeneuticalness himself, doing his bit to capture the moment for posterity. He had brought his super-snazzy mega-camera, mostly to allow him to get a photo of Bishop O'Donoghue for the Catholic Herald. However, he's quite happy to be photographed himself, so I got to take the photo... but I really do prefer my own camera, which has far fewer buttons!

The Serious Stuff Of The Session...

I wanted to call this post "The Session's Serious Stuff," but didn't like the ambiguity of the apostrophe!

The "serious" stuff is, of course, the set of talks. The Faith Movement is noted for its intellectually challenging approach, and it can be a bit overwhelming. The speakers are all terribly well-qualified, but then, so are a great many of the audience, which makes the task of giving a talk rather daunting, as Bishop O'Donoghue admitted to me... just looking at the priests, we have degrees in Mathematics, Radio Astronomy, Nuclear Chemistry, Psychology...

However, the speakers are pretty good at making the complicated stuff accessible to the young people present, and they respond to the intellectual challenge. Several times over the years, young people have told me that, while the first Conference they attended was pretty daunting, and some of the content of the talks was tricky to grasp, they recognised that the message being presented to them was one worth making the effort to understand, and that the truths of the Catholic faith were (often for the first time in their lives) being presented in their fullness, without being watered down to make them more "palatable" or "relevant".

The website is down as I type this, but the talks will be available for download quite soon, I think.

The talks were as follows:

Fr. Luiz Ruscillo: The Kingdom of God in the world today

Fr. Stephen Dingley: The future of the world - the meaning and purpose of creation.

Fr. Dylan James: The disaster of sin.

Fr. Roger Nesbitt: "The Kingdom of God is at hand" - The meaning of the first coming of Christ.

Rev. Ross Campbell: "Amen, come Lord Jesus" - the Church prepares for the second coming of Christ.

There was also the talk by our Guest Speaker, Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue, and a Seminar with personal testimonies from Fr. James Clark and two young people whose full names I didn't quite catch (as I thought they'd be on the programme) but who were introduced as Camille and Kieron. I am open to corrections on that!

Return Of The Mac...

I did find a computer, and I was told the password, but, alas, it was Results Day for our Scottish brethren, and it would have been extremely mean to hog the internet access for the purposes of blogging amusement while others were desperate to know their fate... I sincerely intended to do a little sneaky blogging during the discussion groups (I hadn't been assigned to one this year) but discovered that someone had locked the room...

This year's Summer Session was, I think, one of the best I've attended. Numbers were down on previous years, but this was purely because the school had some sort of building work going on, and so they couldn't allocate as many rooms as usual... we even had some people staying at the local Travelodge.

Bishop O'Donoghue's attendance at the conference - real attendance, not just popping over for the day of his talk - was a definite high point. He chatted happily with groups of young people, and appeared to be having a very good time... he was also very entertaining, as I discovered when we were together for lunch on the Wednesday.

And, of course, I took lots of photos. I shall post a few of them shortly, when I've had the chance to download them from the camera.

Pause In Transmission...

No sooner do I get back up to speed (well, almost) on the blogging front, than I have to announce another hiatus in posting frequency. I'm off to the Faith Summer Session tomorrow.

I shall bring my snazzy bit of camera kit with me, so there will be a few photos to look forward to when I get back.

UPDATE: Yippee... I found a computer, and a password...

My Education Continues...

I was given a little further instruction in the intricacies of cricket after Mass today. For the first time ever, I took a particular interest in Sky Sports in the Parish Club. I am intrigued by how the pace of the game actually allows in-depth discussion of tactics and explanations to blondes who are trying to get the general hang of things... and yet, it's compulsive viewing.

I am really getting the cricketing bug (should that be known as getting the grasshopper?) and spent lunch checking the score on my mobile phone; now I have Test Match Special playing on the computer while I blog. This is something I never thought possible...

Today I have been reflecting on how, on Thursday, England threw away a perfectly good advantage over Australia, because it was the gentlemanly thing to do... there are no substitutes in cricket (well, not for batting or bowling) and so England could have forced Australia to play with only ten men, meaning that they'd only need to take nine wickets to get them all out...

I also learned about commentator gamesmanship: especially the particularly ungentlemanly tactic of asking a direct question just after the person has taken a large mouthful of cake. Apparently, cake features quite a bit in cricket commentary.

I was momentarily quite pleased with myself when, looking at a player on the screen, I managed to identify the leg side... only to be informed that this was only correct if the player was right-handed. I learned about leg-byes, byes, extras and dollying up (I may have mis-heard, or mis-spelled, that last one: whacking the ball up in the air...) as well as preparing cricket pitches.

It also seems that the umpire's word is law: a player (or ball) is out if the umpire says he (or it) is out... and, while a day's play might be extended (subject to light and weather) in order to make up for time lost earlier in the match, the match will not extend beyond the five days. That seems a little unfair on all those spectators who bought tickets for Saturday's play, but perhaps they get refunds...

I doubt that my interest in cricket will ever extend to making tea and sandwiches in the pavillion, but I'm definitely hooked as a spectator. Ooh. Katich has just been caught out. Nine wickets to go... and now Ponting's just been bowled out by Swann... Eight and counting...

Usus Antiquior

I was asked to alert readers to the fact that Usus Antiquior, a journal dedicated to the Sacred Liturgy and published with the Society of St. Catherine of Siena, is getting closer to publication.

I blogged about the launch of the journal in September 2008, and alerted people to the need for donations back in January, and now it's time to sign up for the journal itself!

The journal is due to be published in 2010. Individual subscription is currently set at £25 (US$ 64) for one year (2 issues) or at the reduced rate of £46 (US$ 76); the student subscription rate is £15 (US$ 28) for one year. There are other rates for Religious Houses and Institutions.

You can find out more about the journal, or subscribe, by visiting this website.