This is an ecumenical website of resources and reflections on liturgy, spirituality, and worship for individuals and communities. It is run by Rev. Bosco Peters.
Sex! Sex and Religion! Some people talk about New Zealand as if it is a “secular” nation. It is in fact a deeply religious nation. New Zealand has a state religion. Here is a picture of the Christchurch cathedral of our State religion. No, not the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on the left, but… Continue Reading
In May, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei published Universae Ecclesiae (“To the Universal Church”), “on the application of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum.” Summorum Pontificum, by Pope Benedict XVI, restored the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. Clearly, the “extraordinary form” and the “ordinary form” are to live more like… Continue Reading
My church is abysmal at keeping statistics. The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia appears almost frightened of them. We have no real idea of national church-attendance, baptisms, weddings; we do not know our clergy age-distribution, their qualifications, or where or if they trained; etc. This means we cannot observe trends or do… Continue Reading
I recently received the Prayers of the Mass, the RC NZ mini-sacramentary from Pentecost to Advent this year. Regular readers here will know that the NZ RC church has kept putting off introducing the full new English Mass translation. Last it was going to have been introduced by now. Currently it has been pushed further… Continue Reading
So the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop and says, ‘Can you make me one with everything?’ My favourite bits are the Dalai Lama saying, “theoretically possible”, and the presenter at the end who still doesn’t get the joke: “you should have said make me one with the lot”! I recently sat in a… Continue Reading
Benedictine monk, Fr Anthony Ruff, who is Associate Professor of Theology at Collegeville and a chant expert, has publicly withdrawn from all his upcoming speaking engagements on the Roman Missal in dioceses across the United States. He has published an Open Letter to the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops on the forthcoming English translation of the… Continue Reading
Most Roman Catholics appear not to be aware that in 1998 there was an excellent new English translation of the Roman Missal. The first translation had been released in 1973. In in the mid 1980s translation work began again. It was to be more accurate. There was international cooperation among bishops, scholars, liturgists, Latinists, and… Continue Reading
