Blood Of Christ Research Articles

Mendicant order politics and the status of Christ's shed blood*

The 1462 debate at Pius II's court between Franciscans and Dominicans on the metaphysical status of Christ's shed blood is here explained as a battle between conflicting theories on the metaphysics of human nature first developed in the late thirteenth century. Each order's theory had since become politically instrumentalized and bound to its corporate identity. A close reading of two texts produced following the debate provokes further reflection in two directions. On the one hand, the debate illuminates the interaction between scholasticism and humanism. Dominican arguments which drew upon Aquinas's writings on the human body's dignity appealed to the Renaissance humanist Pius. On the other hand, a methodological point is raised with respect to the writing of histories of ideas, namely that it would seem, pace Quentin Skinner, that it is possible to write a history of an idea in its own right alongside and compatible with a history of the uses to which the idea is put. Aquinas's theory on the metaphysics of human nature retained a power of its own, generating a vision of the human body's dignity almost in spite of the immediate exigencies of mendicant order politics in 1462.

Comparison of helminth and hard tick infestation between riding and work horses in Ahwaz, Iran

Millions of dollars are spent every year for internal and external parasite control in horses; however, parasites remain one of the most important problems affecting their health and well-being (Raynaud et al. 1983). All horses have internal parasites and, if left untreated, ticks and worms can rob a horse of precious blood nutrients and energy. Problems associated with parasite infection include diarrhoea, colic, weight loss, poor growth, emaciation, impaired growth, predisposition to other infectious diseases and unexpected sudden death (Taylor et al. 2007). The common parasitic infestations of horses are caused by mange mites, lice, bots, ticks, roundworms, palisade worms, Trichonema and pinworms (Kingscote 1938). Ticks have eight legs (insects have six); non-engorged, they are small, flat and brown. Adult engorged ticks are dark blue-grey and the size of a pea. When they drop off, they leave behind a crater-like sore in the middle of an itchy/painful lump (George et al. 2002). Ticks are external parasites which suck blood from the host animal. Two general groups of ticks attack horses: hard ticks and soft ticks. Hard ticks have a long association with the host, feed slowly, take a large blood meal, drop from the host to moult and lay many eggs (Kaufman et al. 2009). The treatment of infected animals depends on the results of diagnostic tests, counts of eggs per gram of faeces (EPG) as well as methods for culturing, counting and identifying third-stage (L3) strongyle larvae per gram of faeces (LPG). For horses, such information does not exist in the published literature (Nielsen et al. 2010). A faecal egg count test is a microscopic examination for parasite eggs in fresh manure. This simple test can indicate which parasites are present and in what numbers. Adult parasites lay eggs or proglottids (portions of their bodies containing eggs) that pass out of the intestinal tract in the faeces. Internal parasite eggs can be detected in the faeces by performing a faecal egg count test. A faecal egg count test establishes the number of parasite eggs present in each gram of manure tested (EPG). Traditionally, a horse with an EPG value of 200 to 500 would be considered a candidate for treatment. In a herd, an average EPG value between all horses of 100 to 300 has long been considered the threshold between normal and unusual levels of parasite infestation (Evans and Rood 2009). Faecal worm egg counts, if conducted correctly, can also determine the general type of parasites present such as pinworms, threadworms, roundworms (Parascaris), strongyles and tapeworms. The Modified Wisconsin Sugar Flotation Method is highly sensitive for use with horses (three eggs per 1 g of sample) such that negative counts indicate the absence of adult parasites. Repeated negative information on the total number of worm eggs shed per pound of faeces can determine the rate by which an animal is re-contaminating its environment (Coates 2007). In the Ahwaz region, worm parasite infection is one of the most abundant animal diseases which cause economic losses and health problems for the infected animal husbandries. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of external and internal parasite infestation in about 120 horses in this region since little data exist in this field in Iran.

John Saltmarsh and the Mystery of Redemption

Early in 1646, an intriguing little book came forth from Giles Calvert's press.Free-Grace, or, The Flowings of Christ's Blood Freely to Sinnersby John Saltmarsh—at that time rector of Brasted in Kent and shortly to assume a chaplaincy at headquarters of the New Model Army—evoked caustic rebuttals from divines of high caliber and prominent profile, each sporting a nose for troublemakers and a willingness to controvert and condemn. This,prima facie, is mildly perplexing. For the demeanor of Saltmarsh's book is not obviously contentious. Rather,Free-Graceis studied in its disinclination to engage argumentatively with specific protagonists; it is neither thunderous nor acidulous, and makes scant effort to situate itself in the to-and-fro of the paper wars conducted in the mangled mid-century terrain of English practical divinity.

Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, 2011: The Haskins Medal

The Haskins Medal for 2011 goes to Caroline Walker Bynum for her book Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond, published in 2007 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. In a disturbing, intriguing, and masterly study of Christ's blood, the author describes the (to us) strange yet logical, emotional yet analytic approaches of theology and devotion. From the late fourteenth century until the early sixteenth century, northern Europe experienced a kind of “blood frenzy,” as Bynum calls it. The material reality and sacrificial effect of the blood shed by Christ's torment and execution provoked intense religious emotion as well as harsh criticism of popular practices. Discussion about the nature and implications of Christ's blood reflected unease over what could be taken as unique remains of Christ's body. Because the blood was an effusion, it was a physical symbol of Christ's suffering that remained on earth after the Resurrection, yet it also could be regarded as c...

Transfusion transmission of hepatitis B virus: still learning more about it

Background Despite continuous technical improvement in blood donation testing, hepatitis B infection remains a major risk of transfusion‐transmitted viral infection. The residual risk of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission is related to the pre‐seroconversion window period (WP), infection with immunovariant viruses, and with occult carriage of HBV infection (OBI).Results and discussion Reduction of HBV residual risk is achieved by developing more sensitive HBsAg test, by adopting anti‐HBc screening when appropriate, and recently by implementing HBV nucleic acid testing (NAT), either in minipools or more efficiently in individual donations. Compared with serological testing, HBV NAT combines the ability to significantly reduce the window period and to detect OBIs. Clinical observations suggest lower transmission rate of occult HBV than WP. Lower transmission rate might be related to the low viral load generally observed in OBI donors or to the presence of defective variants associated with occult carriage. In addition, there is evidence that OBI‐infected donors carrying neutralizing anti‐HBs (∼50%) are unlikely to be infectious, while those with anti‐HBc only may be more infectious especially in immunocompromised recipients. Immunodeficient elderly and patients receiving immunosuppressive treatments (organ transplantation or cancer chemotherapy) may be susceptible to infection with lower infectious dose even in the presence of anti‐HBs. There is no evidence that blood from anti‐HBc only positive/HBV DNA‐negative donors is infectious. Present evidence suggests that the association of HBsAg and sensitive NAT screening adequately covers risks of HBV transfusion–transmission, allowing to dispense or discontinue anti‐HBc screening, avoiding discarding non‐infectious and precious blood units, particularly in high prevalence areas. Identification of ‘post‐transfusion’ HBV infection relies essentially on clinical evidence of acute infection or on look‐back exercises following the identification of HBV DNA‐positive donations. To protect from HBV infection the increasing number of immunodeficient recipients, maximum sensitivity of HBV NAT is required. As these recipients are also at risk of viral reactivation when previously exposed, anti‐HBc testing and storage of a pre‐transfusion sample when anti‐HBc‐positive would prevent the difficulties of differentiating between transfusion–transmission and reactivation.

L’eucharistie des origines: datation et déroulement, à la lumière des sources syriaques

A comparative study of documents on the Eucharist from the first three centuries (New Testament manuscripts in Syriac, Greek, Latin, the Codex D, and the Vetus latina), extended from the use of rituals of both Jewish Sabbath meals (as described in the Talmud of Jerusalem), complemented by their gradual implementation in the Aramaic Church on the Judeo-Christian side, and by the Church of the Greco-Roman Empire on the Gentile side, and reviewed within the Roman liturgy, gives way to the following conclusions: Jesus’ Last Supper was not a Passover meal; the chronologies of John and the Synoptic Gospels on the Last Supper are consistent; receiving the Eucharist, according to the Acts of the Apostles and in first century, called the ‘breaking of bread’, was designated as the Body of Christ (which was not the case concerning the wine becoming the Blood of Christ, as is found in the Codex D); the Sabbath meals served as a model for the weekly ritual: the Assyrian Church upholds two days, Friday and Saturday, as being holy (the Anaphora of Adai and Mari for the Aramaic Church); this text and the Didache, tailored for Greco-Latin Christians, were written before the publication of the Gospels. The former is used for both days, but according to the Jewish model, the Didache presents two Eucharistic celebrations: one for the eve of the Sabbath, with the cup preceding the bread and the meal, and the other in reverse order, with the bread preceding the wine; derived from former uses of the Sabbath, churches in the West gradually combined the two rites into one weekly Sunday celebration, consisting of the bread and the wine; therefore, by symmetry, the declaration of the wine as being the Blood of Christ was introduced, eventually abandoning Eucharistic celebrations with water, which had been tolerated at the closing of the Sabbath. This work reminds us that the use of Syriac, the first language of Christianity, is essential in understanding the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, and that Judaism is at the roots of the Christian liturgy, the Sheqinah becoming somewhat Maranatha.

Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War and Violence

Orthodox Perspectives on Peace, War and Violence

Das Mosaik „Die Begegnung Melchisedeks mit Abraham“ im Langhaus von S. Maria Maggiore in Rom und sein zeitgeschichtliches Umfeld

AbstractThe research in the mosaics of St. Maria Maggiore is reconsidered. The picture of Melchisedek shows him offering bread and wine to the victorious Abraham and, as a focus of the picture, the transformation of the offered gifts into a sacrifice to God and into a prototype of the high priest Christ and the eucharist that was celebrated at the altar. The hypothesis of Sabine Schrenk, however, according to which the antitype (the eucharistic gifts, bread and wine as body and blood of Christ) is already present in the picture of Melchisedek; cannot be maintained. Therefore a couple of specific motives, most of them being not observed up to now, were analyzed: Christ as high priest in the mosaic that shows Jesus in the triumphal arch and its relation to Melchisedek as high priest, God-Father turning to Melchisedek (and not to his gifts) and the dealing with the eucharist in a prominent place. These observations lead to the result that the thematic background of the mosaic can be seen in the Christological controversy, esp. the struggle against Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople (428-431). The series of mosaics of the triumph arch can be interpreted as a Christological concept. Thus the pope Xystus III (432-440) demonstrated his theology stressing the divinity of the child Jesus against the Christological concept of Nestorius. The mosaic with Melchisedek pursues this Christological intention, the mosaics of the triumph arch and the mosaic with Melchisedek are a thematic unity.

Natural stem cell transplantation: interventions, nuances and ethics

To the Editor: We acknowledge Tolosa et al.’s comprehensive, interesting and timely article [1], which makes an excellent case for natural stem cell transplantation to occur at birth. They identify a host of benefits of the redistribution of infant’s blood from the placenta to its body. The ‘placental transfusion’ is a major physiological event in the transition from foetal to neonatal life that should not be interrupted without good cause. So their recommendation that ‘unnecessary excessive delayed clamping should be precluded in healthy term cord blood donors’ was puzzling. First, we were pleasantly surprised that neonates were described frankly as ‘blood donors’. This concept has previously been avoided as cord blood stem cell harvesters usually describe ‘blood that is left in the placenta’[2] rather than explicitly taken from the infant. Precious blood only remains in the placenta if forced by premature (early) cord clamping, an intervention with evidence of harm to the infant. In most countries, blood donation can only be accepted from adults; children are not legally allowed to become donors. Any and all consideration of blood donation, even if purportedly for the purpose of autologous stem cell collection for future use by the child itself, should be secondary to safety concerns for the infant. However, the authors did not discuss the need of parents to be informed about the prima facie right of infants not to donate blood that would otherwise belong to them and if taken could put them at risk. Secondly, the description that ‘the artificial loss of stem cells at birth could potentially impact later development and predispose infants to diseases …’ conflicts with the section that supports early clamping; leaving an impression that the authors disagree on the timing of cord clamping and whether blood should be in the infant or freezer. Without relevant expertise, they nevertheless promote clamping at a ‘normal time’ although there is no such thing. The only precise definition of ‘early clamping’ is any case when it occurs before cessation of blood flow (assessed by umbilical artery pulsation) and the time should be accurately measured [3]. Calling something ‘delayed’ when not performed ‘early’ is ambiguous and pejorative. With present knowledge [4, 5] many recommend that clamping should routinely be performed after umbilical blood flow ceases [6]. We were bewildered by the newly formulated subcategory ‘unnecessary excessive delay’ where a misleading notion was introduced that promotes early clamping in all normal healthy newborns which may be harmful [7]. It is incorrect to present redistribution of blood from the placenta to the infant’s body as superfluous physiology. The authors finally limit their recommendation of ‘delayed’ clamping ‘to populations that have limited access to health care and presumed poor nutrition and those that choose not to bank cord blood for financial reasons’. We cannot precisely define which infants are at risk of iron deficiency even in wealthy settings or developed nations. This is incoherent with the rationale for the article and ethically unacceptable. Finally, the acknowledgement section is mislabelled as it concerns conflict of interest (even if not financial) and this article paves the way to early clamping for cord blood banking. As the authors themselves state, early clamping is ‘without clear benefit and [has]no rationale to support it’. There is no proven benefit of interrupting umbilical blood flow before its natural cessation. Until then, the only ethical bank recipient is the newborn infant.

SMOKE-FREE LEGISLATION IN APPALACHIAN COUNTIES

In the article “Clean Indoor Air Ordinance Coverage in the Appalachian Region of the United States,” Ferketich et al. recommend that clean indoor air laws in certain Appalachian states “should be statewide, because, clearly, leaving the effort to local communities does not result in a large number of strong local CIA ordinances.”1(p1317) The authors make a monumental leap in their conclusion that efforts to pass strong statewide smoke-free laws should take priority over local laws in Appalachian states. Their study does not analyze the effectiveness of statewide laws; rather, it only reviews the existence and strength of municipal smoke-free ordinances in six selected Appalachian states. In drawing this conclusion, Ferketich et al. do not consider the many political, societal, and contextual factors affecting tobacco control policy in Appalachia and the tobacco-growing states.2–5 Nor do the authors consider the risks associated with enacting smoke-free legislation before there is capacity at the local level for adequate implementation and enforcement.6,7 Only three of the 13 Appalachian states have enacted comprehensive smoke-free workplace legislation, and they are all located in northern, nontobacco growing states.8 Further, Georgia, which has a weak state law without explicit preemption, had very few municipal laws, indicating that local officials in Georgia may have lacked the political will to enact stronger local laws, resulting in implicit preemption.9 The fact that Appalachia is plagued by low socioeconomic status and high unemployment puts these states at risk for enacting weak, preemptive statewide smoke-free legislation, which their study findings support. Mothers participate in a regular physical exercise and social support program titled Caminando Con Fe (Walking With Faith) in a child-friendly place at The Most Precious Blood Church in Chula Vista. The group partnered with the Healthy Eating, Active Communities program to refurbish a nearby park for community use. Photo by Tim Wagner for Partnership for Public's Health. Available at http://www.twagnerimages.com. Printed with permission. The observation that so few Appalachian communities have comprehensive state or municipal smoke-free laws and regulations is not surprising given that these communities are disproportionately affected by high smoking rates, weak tobacco control laws, and lack of funding for comprehensive tobacco control. 2,10 Their study design focused solely on the most affected Appalachian communities, further underscoring the disparities that exist. The authors should have concluded that a crucial first step in smoke-free policy development is to foster capacity and demand at the local level for strong smoke-free laws by creating a mass of local elected officials who will together advocate for the ultimate goal: a comprehensive anti-preemptive statewide smoke-free law that covers all workers.11

Transubstantiation, essentialism, and substance

AbstractAccording to the Eucharistic doctrine of Transubstantiation, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, the whole substance of the bread and wine are converted into the body and blood of Christ. The ‘accidents’ of the bread and wine, however, remain present on the altar. This doctrine leads to a clutch of metaphysical problems, some of which are particularly troubling for essentialists. In this paper, I discuss some of these problems, which have recently been pressed by Brian Ellis and Justin Broackes. I argue that defenders of Transubstantiation have satisfactory replies.

The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566–1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age (review)

Reviewed by: The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566–1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age Walter S. Melion The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566–1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age. By Mia M. Mochizuki. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2008. Pp. xxiv, 399. $124.95. ISBN: 978-0-754-66104-7.) This important book provides an extended analysis—pictorial, functional, contextual, and theological—of the six scriptural tekstborden (text panels) installed in the Great Church of Haarlem between 1580 and 1585, where they served as confessional statements avowing the conversion of this formerly Roman Catholic cathedral into a purified Temple of the Word. Painted onto columns, hung from piers, elevated above the choir screen, and inserted into the stone armature that once supported the high altarpiece, these panels, also known as tekstschilderijen (text paintings), consist of biblical citations and paraphrases that substitute divinely sanctioned litterae for the Catholic figural images recently despoiled by iconoclasts and then systematically (and carefully) removed by civic authorities. The subjects—the Last Supper, Ten Commandments, Passages from Matthew and from John, supplemented by the biblical compendia assembled in the Greengrocers’ and Linen Weavers’ Paintings, as well as by the commemorative Siege of Haarlem on the reverse of the Last Supper—constitute a programmatic statement of Reformed religious identity, as Mochizuki amply demonstrates. The author invokes the reform theology of Erasmus, as set forth by scholars such as Carlos Eire, to explain how these text panels materialize a new kind of image-theory, at once verbal and visual, that substitutes textual simulacra for pictorial eikones, the written for the enfleshed Word, as representational indices of the transcendent and therefore incommensurable presence of God within the communal fabric of the Church. Mochizuki construes the tekstborden as specimens of what she calls Reformed aesthetics: The posticonoclastic image, she argues, swaps verisimilar imitation for indexical portrayal as the key principle of sacred image-making. The text panels respond to John Calvin’s prohibition against the corporeal representation of God, an interdict enshrined in Question 97 of the Heidelberg Catechism, by emphasizing that he has been portrayed in an emphatically mediated and referential fashion. Instead of a lifelike effigy, the worshiper is given an image [End Page 568] composed of words, either gilt or painted in oil on stone or panel, that renders doctrinal truths beyond the scope of any conventional picture. Mochizuki insists on the artifice of these indices of the Word: Composed of depicted words, they enshrine the knowledge of God to be found in Scripture, which is transmitted visually and yet verbally; at the same time, these painted texts implicitly allude to the Catholic imagery they supplant, that falsely purveyed the illusion of unmediated access to embodied divinity. Having displaced mimesis as the principle of sacred image-making, they call attention to their novel status as examples of a “symbolic or metonymic system of representation [that] changed the very idea of what decoration in churches should be” (p. 140). The question arises: Why was it so imperative to retain the vestiges of the image? Mochizuki would seem to provide several answers. First, Calvin and his Dutch adherents, well aware of the human need for outward signs of devotion, provided tangible indicators through which churchgoers could convey, or better, represent their relation to God. These expressions of congregational piety were devised to underscore the differences between Catholic and Reformed modes of worship. Second, the text image provided a “visual locus of meeting” (p. 261), differing in this respect from book texts; through engagement with the tekstborden, the community represents to itself the hermeneutic work of scriptural reading and the institutional project of fashioning the new Church of Christ. Third, text images like the Last Supper refer specifically to the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist as a sacramental commemoration (ghedachtenisse) of the memorial meal instituted by Christ to recall his redemptive sacrifice. Whereas figural altarpieces body forth the doctrine of transubstantiation, whereby the species of bread and wine are sacramentally transformed into the body and blood of Christ, the indexical tekstborden emphatically signify that the sacrament is referential and metaphorical. The calligraphic pointing of doctrinally resonant words such as bread, body, and testament, drives home this point...

Bleeding Pages, Bleeding Bodies: A Gendered Reading of British Library MS Egerton 1821

odily fluids were central to late medieval piety and artistic practice in fifteenth-century Northern Europe. Blood devotion, in particular, was reified during this period. The obsessive and anxiety-ridden interest in Christ’s wounds, bleeding, and suffering marked a deep desire to understand the physicality of Christ’s death as well as to achieve a new, body-centered form of piety. Blood frenzy widely manifested itself in images, texts, and alleged visions; one of the most extreme manifestations of late medieval blood piety and interest in physical modes of devotion is found within British Library manuscript Egerton 1821. Made in England circa 1480-90, Egerton 1821 is comprised of a Psalter, Rosary of the Virgin, and litany, among other smaller devotional texts. It was likely crafted by Carthusian monks at the priory of Sheen and possibly intended for the use of a laywoman in Kent.1 What is most visually striking about this pocket-sized codex are its prefatory pages— they have been seemingly spattered with the blood of Christ: the first three pages are painted entirely black and filled with numerous bloodred drops (Fig. 1). The following eight pages are covered with hundreds of tiny crimson wounds superimposed on red vellum back-drops (Fig. 2). Beginning on the verso of folio 8, this same design continues but is mostly covered by three pasted-in woodcuts depicting Christ and the Arma Christi, the Five Wounds of Christ, and Christ as the Man of Sorrows (Figs. 3, 4, & 5). The main purpose of this paper is to consider the gendering of Christ’s blood and how Egerton 1821 articulates this in both text and image. I will first consider the manuscript in the context of this fanatical period of blood devotion in order to answer the question that first comes

Performances of Franco-American identity in Mirbah : A portrait of Precious Blood parish

Performances of Franco-American identity in <i>Mirbah</i> : A portrait of Precious Blood parish

6 June 2010 • Proper 5 • Body and Blood of Christ

6 June 2010 • Proper 5 • Body and Blood of Christ

In Native Tongues: Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Montana’s Eastern Tribes (1975–Today)

In Native Tongues: Catholic Charismatic Renewal and Montana’s Eastern Tribes (1975–Today) Mark Clatterbuck Introduction: Powerful Memories During the summer of 2008, I was in Montana interviewing Native Christians on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation for an oral history project exploring questions of dual religious identities among the Chippewa and Cree tribes. I spoke with a wide variety of Native Christians on the reservation, including Catholics, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Baptists, and independent Evangelicals. During the course of our conversations, stark differences emerged among the various denominational groups when they explained how free—or restricted—they felt to practice traditional tribal religions alongside their Christian worship. There was one element in their divergent narratives, however, that seemed to enjoy nearly universal approval, freely transgressing denominational lines, having affected Catholics, Pentecostals, and Traditionalists alike with equal force and emotional weight. In story after story, these Native Christians spoke effusively about a period of spiritual renewal among Montana’s tribes that shaped their religious lives unlike any other, a span of roughly ten years that many still regard as a spiritual summit against which they measure all subsequent religious experiences in their lives. They were speaking of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that swept across eastern Montana’s Native communities from 1975 into the early 1980s. The movement was marked by widespread prayer for physical and inner healing, tongues, the experience of “resting in the Spirit” (also “slain in the Spirit”), prophecies, and a powerfully felt sense of spiritual community. The collective religious experience of those years freely crossed sectarian barriers, often bringing Catholics and Pentecostals together in shared worship on reservations where interdenominational rivalries had deep historical roots. The intensity of those events and their enduring imprint on the religious landscape of these reservations today soon led me back to Montana to give more serious attention to the stories of spiritual awakening and healing that animated [End Page 153] the memories and spiritual lives of so many Native Christians who belong, today, to a wide variety of Christian communities. Given both the intensity and scope of this phenomenon among Montana’s Native people, I believe this is a story that deserves a wider audience than it has received to date. It is also a story best told through the voices of those most affected by the pulse of its life flow and the rhythm of its waves. At the same time, it is a story whose telling is accompanied by a growing sense of urgency; several key players of these events—including the Seneca elder and Franciscan sister José Hobday, the Precious Blood priest Father Paul Schaaf, and the Lakota Sioux elder Joe Red Thunder—have recently died as a period of nearly forty years now separates us from the first rumblings of these extraordinary events. In the summer of 2009, I returned to hear and record the stories of many who were near the center of the movement, Native and non-Native alike. The record of their memories forms the basis of what follows.1 There are always many more voices that ought to be included in a project like this. Nevertheless, I’ve tried to assemble a fairly representative gathering of those participants largely responsible for the vitality of the movement on three of Montana’s reservations where the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) was experienced most poignantly across the state through the 1970s and 1980s: the Fort Belknap Reservation (Gros Ventre and Assiniboine), the Rocky Boy’s Reservation (Chippewa and Cree), and the Crow Reservation. I include the voices of women and men, Natives and non-Natives, lay leaders and clergy, all of whom played key roles in the movement’s impact across these tribal communities. Lighting the Fire: From Devil’s Lake to Wolf Point It began near Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. In the early summer of 1975, a regional Catholic Indian Congress was held at St. Michael’s Mission on the Spirit Lake Tribe Reservation, not far from Fort Totten. During one of the services, the Lakota Sioux elder Joe Red Thunder was unexpectedly asked to pray for a woman suffering from cancer who was standing beside him. Joe’s father had been a Catholic catechist, and Joe...

Marcus of Orvieto 'On the pelican'

Marcus of Orvieto 'On the pelican' Girard J. Etzkorn (bio) There are only three surviving biographical notices regarding Marcus of Orvieto: two as colophons of Vatican manuscripts1 and a third as an entry in a catalog of the papal library in Avignon where we read: "Item, liber de mortalitatibus(!) septem Martini(!) de Urbevetani Ordinis Minorum."2 While the spelling of the book title and its author can be attributed to scribal errors or misreadings, the 'seven,' place of origin, and religious order affiliation are accurate. Marcus's Liber de Moralitatibus3 is indeed divided into seven treatises: On the celestial bodies, On the elements, On the birds, On the fish, On the animals, On trees and plants and On precious gems. The colophons of the two Vatican manuscripts attest to his being a Friar Minor: Ego frater Marcus Urbis Veteris Fratrum Minorum Ordinis pauperculus. The prooemium of the Liber de Moralitatibus attests to the fact that Marcus's patron was Benedict Gaetani cardinal of St. Nicholas in carcere Tulliano,' the future pope Boniface VIII. This would put the time of composition circa 1290. Several allusions in Marcus's work to Paris, viz. the Parisian masters, its patron Ste. Genevieve, indicate that Marcus was at one time a student there and it is conceivable that Benedict commissioned the [End Page 179] work while he was a papal legate there.4 Marcus's opus falls into the category of exempla literature, i.e. a source book for preachers. We offer the English translation of the chapter on pelicans5 as typical of Marcus's way of proceeding which, generally speaking, is threefold. First a physical description, which was generally copied from Bartholomew of England's 'On the Properties of Things,'6 secondly its spiritual signification attested to by pertinent passages from Scripture and bolstered by citations from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and thirdly (though not always) examples of persons who exemplify the spiritual lesson either supportively or adversely. The legend of the pelican piercing its breast in order to revivify its dead chicks was familiar in Christian literature and art signifying analogously Christ's salvific blood redeeming the human race from its fallen state. The following is the English translation of Marcus's treatise 3, 'De avibus,' chapter 31. Chapter 31: On the pelican The pelican is seen to possess the following conditions or properties according to the doctors. 1. First of all, as Isidore says, it is a "bird dwelling in solitude along the banks of the Nile." This signifies preachers and contemplative persons who flee the vanities of the world and occupy themselves with heavenly consolations or delightful and re-creative consolations of Sacred Scripture, Psalm 54, 8-9: Far away I would flee; I would lodge in the wilderness. I would hasten to find shelter from the violent storm [End Page 180] and the tempest. Bernard, On the Canticle of Canticles and in his sermons: "Divine consolation is delicate, it is not given to those preoccupied with what is alien to it." Ambrose, On Luke: "Those preoccupied with secular vanities cannot know what is divine." 2. Secondly, as Isidore says, whatever it eats, it first dips in water with its foot and having done so, using the foot as a hand as it were, puts it [the morsel] in its mouth. This signifies doctors [i. e. teachers] and preachers who practice what they teach or preach after the example of the Apostle, Romans 15, 18: I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me. Jerome, To Nepotian: "Make sure your deeds do not 'confound' your words, lest when you speak in the assembly someone might say to himself: 'Physician, cure yourself'." 3. Thirdly, as Isidore says, of all the birds, with the exception of the phylargum,7 only the pelican uses its foot as a hand. This signifies a devout religious who frequently, motivated by holy desires and affections, prefers holy meditations rather than manual labor. 1Tim. 4: 7-8: Train yourself for devotion, for while physical training is of limited value, devotion is valuable in every respect. It is written of blessed Martin that his eyes and hands...

Shed for Many: An Accurate Rendering of the Pro Multis in the Formula of Consecration

Shed for Many: An Accurate Rendering of the Pro Multis in the Formula of Consecration Manfred Hauke I. The Call for a Faithful Translation of the “Pro Multis” The “eucharistic sacrifice” is, according to the Second Vatican Council, “the source and the culmination of all christian life.” At the center of the most intimate fulfillment of the life of the Church stands the Eucharistic Prayer or canon, with the words of Jesus which effect the consecration: “… by means of the words and actions of Christ, the sacrifice is carried out which Christ himself instituted at the Last Supper , when he offered his Body and Blood under the species of bread The present study originally appeared in German as “Für viele vergossen .” Studie zur sinngetreuen Wiedergabe des pro multis in den Wandlungsworten (Augsburg, 2008); preceded by “‘Für viele vergossen.’ Studie zur sinngetreuen Wiedergabe des pro multis in den Wandlungsworten,” in Forum Katholische Theologie 23.1 (2007) 1-47. It integrates part of my foreword to the work of F. Prosinger, Das Blut des Bundes—vergossen für viele? Zur Übersetzung und Interpretation des “hyper pollôn” in Mk 14,24, Quaestiones non disputatae 12 (Siegburg, 2007) 7-32. For the English version some slight updates have been made. Ed.: The translator of this work prefers to remain anonymous. A table of abbreviations of works cited is provided at the end of this essay. Where I have had access to English editions of the (mostly German) works referenced , I have supplied the relevant bibliographical information. Unless otherwise noted, all translations into English are the translator’s. Lastly, I have modified some of the author’s biblical quotations so as to conform them to the Revised Standard Version (RSV 1966), from which all Scripture citations are drawn. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium (21 November 1964), in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2: Trent to Vatican II, ed. and trans. Norman P. Tanner (London and Washington DC: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990) §11, p. 857. Antiphon 14.2 (2010): 169-229 170 Manfred Hauke and wine, gave them to his Apostles to eat and drink, and left them the command to perpetuate this same mystery.” The central importance of Jesus’ words of institution in the canon is to be accentuated by a precise translation of the liturgical texts. This call was made already in 2001 with the Instruction Liturgicam authenticam ; with it the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDWDS) regulated the use of the vernacular in the publication of the liturgical books of the Roman Rite. In contrast to an earlier practice, which often confounded translation with interpretation , and thereby did not remain free of certain fashionable but dubious tendencies, the Instruction stressed fidelity to the original Latin text. The words of institution, which are indispensable for the consecration, were particularly emphasized: The high point of all liturgical action is the celebration of the Mass, in which the Eucharistic Prayer or Anaphora in turn occupies the pre-eminent place. For this reason, the approved translations of the approved Eucharistic Prayers require the utmost care, especially as regards the sacramental formulae…. Despite this clearly articulated theological standard, it made a sensation when, on 17 October 2006, Cardinal Francis Arinze, thenPrefect of the CDWDS, sent a letter to all presidents of episcopal conferences concerning the precise translation of the expression pro multis in the consecration of the Precious Blood. Just how little Institutio generalis Missalis Romani, editio typica tertia (2002) 79d: “Narratio institutionis et consecratio: verbis et actionibus Christi sacrificium peragitur , quod ipse Christus in Cena novissima instituit, cum suum Corpus et Sanguinem sub speciebus panis et vini obtulit, Apostolisque manducandum et bibendum dedit et iis mandatum reliquit idem mysterium perpetuandi,” trans. International Committee on English in the Liturgy, General Instruction of the Roman Missal (Third Typical Edition) (Washington DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003) p. 31. See also CCC 1353, 1375. Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments , Instruction Liturgiam authenticam (28 March 2001) 63, at . On 1 November 1974 the Congregation (then called the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship) had already expressed itself similarly : “The...

The Study of Young San's Redrawn Self-Portrait by the Blood of Jesus Christ

The Study of Young San's Redrawn Self-Portrait by the Blood of Jesus Christ

Making Sense of Christian Worship: Language, Truth, and Metaphysics

How do we make sense of the basic claims present in most Christian worship? 1 We hold up bread and a cup and say, “The body and blood of Christ.” We read some words from a text and proclaim, “The w...