Bourgeois on the Great Vigil

"The paschal vigil is not the fulfillment of the triduum in the sense of a 'final' celebration:  it is a commencement. . . .
"—The liturgy of the paschal fire:  relatively late in its current form ([of a] fire kindled [out] in front of the church), it was in [its] origins a rite of the lucernarium, [an] ancient gesture inherited from that moment in domestic life when one lit the lamps in the house before nightfall.  In keeping with the Jewish manner of reckoning the day from evening to evening, this rite of the candlestick marked the entry into the new day.  Hence the importance of this entry in the paschal celebration:  Lent began with ashes, this liturgy of the fire opens the heart of the assembly to the newness of the Resurrection.  The communication of fire to each of the faithful, the procession, and the acclamation of the Exsultet come and stamp their seal on this irruption of the paschal newness into the heart of the night."

Daniel Bourgeois "«Les images liturgiques sont des images folles»:  essai sur la structure du triduum paschal," Communio: revue catholique internationale 35, nos. 1-2 (janvier-avril 2010):  117 (103-118).

Turl Street

"Oxford's Turl Street" was "famously (if ironically) said to emulate the Church of England's movement from the 'High' (Street) to the 'Broad' (Street) while bypassing 'Jesus' (College)."

     Markus Bockmuehl, "Bible versus theology:  is 'theological interpretation' the answer?", Nova et vetera:  the English edition of the international theological journal 9, no. 1 (Winter 2011):  44n32 (27-47).

"I can just as well pray in the forest, in the freedom of nature."

"But against that could then rightly be voiced the objection that is always to be heard:  I can just as well pray in the forest, in the freedom of nature.  Certainly, anyone can.  But if it were only a matter of that, then the initiative in prayer would lie entirely with us; then God would be a mental hypothesis—whether he answers, whether he can answer or wants to, would remain open.  The Eucharist means, God has answered:  The Eucharist is God as an answer, as an answering presence.  Now the initiative no longer lies with us, in the God-man relationship, but with him, and it now becomes really serious.  That is why, in the sphere of eucharistic adoration, prayer attains a new level; now it is two-way, and so now it really is a serious business.  Indeed, it is now not just two-way, but all-inclusive:  whenever we pray in the eucharistic presence, we are never alone.  Then the whole of the Church, which celebrates the Eucharist, is praying with us.  Then we are praying within the sphere of God's gracious hearing, because we are praying within the sphere of death and resurrection, that is, where the real petition in all our petitions has been heard:  the petition for the victory over death; the petition for the love that is stronger than death."

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, "The presence of the Lord in the sacrament" (1978), in God is near us:  the Eucharist, the heart of life, ed. Stephan Otto Horn and Vinzenz Pfnür, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco, CA:  Ignatius Press, 2003), 90-91 (74-93).  This goes to the heart of all authentically Christian prayer.  All prayer, insofar as it is Christian, is built on the confidence that "God has answered," and the Real Presence is the most concretely sacramental form of "God as answer" that we have in this life.

Koskela on the importance of proclamation to apostolicity

"Only by proclaiming the gospel it has faithfully maintained can the church be truly apostolic."

Douglas M. Koskela, "'But who laid hands on him?'  Apostolicity and Methodist ecclesiology," Pro ecclesia 20, no. 1 (Winter 2011):  41 (28-42), italics mine.  This sentence stresses two of the "three primary ideas" the concept of apostolicity "has been employed to convey":  "continuity with the historical and visible church, the integrity of the church's life and witness, and the calling of the church to proclaim the gospel in word and deed" (29, italics original).

"Declaring the Southern Baptists (or at least the Revd R. Albert Mohler) off-side"

"The union of physical and spiritual praxis was possible for ancient Indians and remains a real goal for many contemporary yogis.  This sort of combination is affirmed by an old joke about a Jesuit priest who, when his bishop forbade priests to smoke while meditating, dutifully agreed but argued that surely there would be no objection if he occasionally meditated while he was smoking.  That one can, however, choose merely to smoke or merely to meditate is denied both by Christians of the Reverend R. Albert Mohler ilk and by Hindus of the Hindu American Foundation ilk, both of whom insist that yoga is only and always a religious system."

     Wendy Doniger, "Assume the position" (a largely enthusiastic review of Yoga body:  the origins of modern posture practice, by Mark Singleton, and a fine summary of the extremely complex history of "yoga"), Times literary supplement no. 5631 (March 4, 2011), 11 (10-11).

Farkasfalvy on the argument ex convenientia

"in Mariology sorting out arguments 'ex convenientia' is much more important than looking for compelling reasons of necessity."

Denis Farkasfalvy, "Reconstructing Mariology:  Mary's virginity and the future of Mariology," Communio:  international Catholic review 37, no. 1 (Spring 2010):  63n30.

Farkasfalvy on vocations

"while all shades of doubt about Mary's virginity in partu and post partum became fashionable and theologians grew more and more tolerant of such statements, thousands of religious communities, primarily of women, for reasons that are not very well known, suddenly lost much of their membership and began a painful journey along the road to extinction."

Denis Farkasfalvy, "Reconstructing Mariology:  Mary's virginity and the future of Mariology," Communio:  international Catholic review 37, no. 1 (Spring 2010):  57-58.