Eccles gets a Blaised throat

Yesterday was the feast of St Blaise, and February 3rd is a very appropriate time of year to celebrate him, since he is the one to go to for throat problems. I myself have had various coughs and colds throughout this winter, so I went up after Mass yesterday to have my throat blessed.

St Blaise with 4th century medical equipment.

Now, what outcome should I have expected? If Jesus had healed me in person, then I would have leapt up rejoicing; but clearly one expects slightly less from a retired Irish priest fumbling around with two candles, even if he is somehow appealing to St Blaise for help.

Still, for a few hours I did feel quite a lot better: no coughing and only a slightly sore throat. Maybe it was psychological, or maybe Fr Jack had managed to invoke a minor miracle.

Now, the Bible itself doesn't have many positive things to say about throats. For example, there's Psalm 69: I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

St Paul (Romans 3) is also somewhat discouraging: Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips. Who is he referring to? Well, all of us, it seems.

Cleopatra prepares to take delivery of an asp.

So here we are at a new day. The throat is slightly better, perhaps, but still not cured. Perhaps someone can advise me: is the St Blaise cure simply a matter of time? Or should I put this one down as a failure (like when, as a child, I asked God to mend my bicycle lamp and He refused)?

Well, there's always Lourdes, I suppose, but it seems a long way to go for a cough.

Sex and the Psalms

The Eccles Bible project has rather stalled recently, as Eccles has been too busy taking part in "Sloth Pride" events - or rather, not bothering - so we have asked Fr Phil Barney of the Church of St Daryl the Apostate to run this week's class.

Hi, I'm Fr Phil, and I've written today's analysis after consulting the writings of great thinkers such as Hans Küng, Tina Beattie, Tony Flannery, Timothy Radcliffe and Stephen Fry. For a long time we've all realised that the main point of religion is SEX, and we see this in the Book of Psalms as well.

Of course in St Daryl's we don't "do" the responsorial psalm, preferring to chant selections from Laudato Si to the tune of some modern pop song - perhaps something catchy by Gary Glitter or Rolf Harris. Still, I'm grateful to Eccles for letting me explain the psalms in the context of our GOD IS SEX project.

St Daryl the Apostate's is PROUD.

We'll be using the Good News Bible, as it's written for people with the IQ of a mollusc, with all the theological subtleties removed. Now, most of the psalms are definitely unsuitable for worship, as they are all about praising God - a rather controversial notion these days. Look how Psalm 6 starts:

Lord, don't be angry and rebuke me!
Don't punish me in your anger!
I am worn out, O Lord; have pity on me!
Give me strength; I am completely exhausted
and my whole being is deeply troubled.
How long, O Lord, will you wait to help me?

How inappropriate in this day and age! Calling on the "Lord" to sort out problems that should be addressed to your social worker, homeopathic doctor, or sex counsellor! We've got beyond that, surely?

Give me strength; I am completely exhausted.

There's a lot of stuff in the Psalms about the Love of God. Nowadays, we only use "love" to mean "sex", so passages such as this (Psalm 13), apparently addressed to God, are clearly unsuitable for modern audiences.

I rely on your constant love;
I will be glad, because you will rescue me.

What's more, the psalmist seems to be unware that PRIDE is GOOD. Look at Psalm 59:

Sin is on their lips; all their words are sinful;
may they be caught in their pride!
Because they curse and lie,
destroy them in your anger;
destroy them completely.

Ian McKellen reminds us that PRIDE is GOOD.

In fact the psalms seem totally to misunderstand the main social issues of today - no mention of same-sex weddings (or any other), nothing about equality and diversity, climate change, etc. Still, the issue of the family is touched on in Psalm 112:

The good man's children will be powerful in the land;
his descendants will be blessed.
His family will be wealthy and rich,
and he will be prosperous forever. 

A good man enjoying prosperity.

Well, those lines are a bit more in keeping with modern values! Of course, if the children were produced by IVF, ideally with a "borrowed" mother helping out a male couple, then that would be even better. But we mustn't be heterophobic here: let's recognise that some male/female relationships can be tolerated, even if we don't think they're natural!

Anyway, you see now why we don't use the psalms at St Daryl's - they really aren't relevant to contemporary issues, such as SEX. However, the last psalm, Psalm 150, makes a good point:

Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his Temple!
Praise his strength in heaven!
Praise him for the mighty things he has done.
Praise his supreme greatness.
Praise him with trumpets.
Praise him with harps and lyres.
Praise him with drums and dancing.
Praise him with harps and flutes.
Praise him with cymbals.
Praise him with loud cymbals.
Praise the Lord, all living creatures!
Praise the Lord!

A few outmoded concepts there - God, temple, Heaven, Praise, etc. but the main idea - that we should play our guitars and show off our liturgical dancing - is clear!

"Come right in!"

Palm Sunday Dilemmas

Fr X. Pell de Mons, our resident exorcist and liturgical consultant, answers your Palm Sunday questions.

St Theodulph of Orleans (tr J.M. Neale) wrote a cracking good hymn.

Q. In today's Palm Sunday procession, I accidentally started singing "The company of angels..." instead of "Thou art the King of Israel...", since I am used to reading text downwards in columns rather than across. After two lines of this I noticed that people were glaring at me, and so I switched back to Verse 1.

My question is: when we got to Verse 2, should I have sung "The company of angels..." again, or gone back to sing the omitted bit from Verse 1? I didn't want people to think I was denying "Thou art the King of Israel".

A: You could try muttering "Thou art the King of Israel..." sotto voce - or sub voce as we Latinists have it.

Q: I had another problem with Verse 3.

A: You mean "with palms before thee went"? Did you sing "psalms" by mistake, even though you have a visual aid to remind you?

Actually, He requested psalms.

Q: Mea culpa, but there's another problem, in Line 3. "Our prayer & prayers & anthems..." I suppose that's a typo?

A: Yes, St Theodulph of Orleans never wrote Inwoodisms like that. It's "Our prayer and praise and anthems". Er, or possibly, "Our praise and prayer and anthems". I'd need to look it up. Still, in these circumstances, you should always sing what is written on the service sheet.

---

A pope showers people with holy water.

Q: I am a Catholic priest, and at the Palm Sunday procession my attention was distracted by an idiot who was singing the wrong verse of "All glory, laud and honour." So much so, that some of my holy water fell onto a pile of unsold Tablet newspapers, which promptly burst into flames, severely damaging the bespoke mass-trousers worn by one of the servers. Is this a known problem?

The Tablet. Keep away from holy water.

A: Yes, indeed. I even heard a rumour that a certain Tablet journalist was severely burned when she came into contact with some holy water; however, this is probably just malicious gossip.

The Tablet in easy-to-burn form - you can fuel some people all of the time.

Bad Hymns 25

We hadn't personally encountered today's nomination for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award, On Eagle's Wings (except on Youtube), but since it has received several nominations we felt we should invite the author, Michael Joncas, to discuss it with us. Hello, Mike!

He will raise you up on eagle's wings.

MJ: Thank you, Eccles. It's a pleasure and a privilege to sit in the chair that has hosted so many great liturgists, such as Paul Inwood, Damian Lundy and Estelle White.

E: Oh is it? Right. Now I couldn't sit through the whole Youtube video without screaming, but I have read the words of your hymn. Basically, the bird stuff comes from Isaiah 40:31. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

MJ: Well, I padded out the chorus a bit. Since the eagle's wings might not be strong enough (and to give you a choice of transport), I wrote:

And He will raise you up on eagle's wings, 
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His hand.

E: Improving on the Bible, eh? Well done. Does dawn have breath, though?

MJ: You start off using the eagle's wings, Eccles, blow around in the air a bit, and then land on God's hand.

Icarus wishes he'd booked to travel with Air Joncas.

E: I see. Now, apart from the chorus, it's a mash-up of Psalm 91.

MJ: Well, I chose some bits of it and made a few more improvements. I felt that King David needed some help in making his psalm acceptable for modern congregations.

E: Yes, he'll be very grateful. Last year I advised him on how to rewrite Psalm 23.

MJ: Right, so "Pestilence" is changed to "Famine", for example. And "his truth shall be thy shield and buckler" becomes "his faithfulness your shield".

Pestilence is dropped, and Famine joins the team.

E: It scans much better that way, doesn't it?

MJ: Of course I haven't managed to make the lines rhyme at all, but then nor did King David. That's more advanced poetry.

E: Except that a psalm, sung to a traditional chant, actually sounds a lot more sacred than what we're left with here.

MJ: Cruel words, Bruvver Eccles. Doesn't a verse like this resonate with you?

For to His angels He's given a command,
To guard you in all of your ways,
Upon their hands they will bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

E: Well it means the same as the original psalm, but it ends with a dreadful clunk, doesn't it? That's rather appropriate, really.

MJ: Still, I'm delighted that I've got angels' hands, as well as an eagle's wings, dawn's breath and God's hand, all bearing me up.

E: Belt and braces, eh? No wonder you're shining like the sun.

MJ: Wikipedia has a fascinating discussion on whether it should be one eagle or many...

E: Let's not go there. Mike, thank you very much.

Michael Joncas, let me bear you away.

---

Previous entries for the Eccles Bad Hymn Award:

Lord of the Dance.    Shine, Jesus, shine.    Enemy of apathy.    Walk in the Light.
Kum Ba Yah.    Follow me.    God's Spirit is in my heart.    Imagine.    Alleluia Ch-ch.
It ain't necessarily so.    I, the Lord of sea and sky.    Colours of day.    The red flag.
Go, the Mass is ended.    I watch the sunrise.    Bind us together, Lord.    Our god reigns.
My way.    Ding-Dong! The witch is dead.    If I were a butterfly.
Journeys ended, journeys begun.    The Galilee song.    The perfect face.
Jesus Christ the apple tree.

2 Samuel

Time for more spiritual nourishment in the form of the next instalment of the Eccles Bible project, where we explain the Bible to atheists.

Now here we come to one powerful argument for atheism: the 2nd book of Samuel is not by Samuel, and doesn't even mention him. In the eyes of Richard Dawkins this proves that the Bible is false. But then The Selfish Gene doesn't mention Gene Kelly, so maybe it's not such a clincher after all.

The Prophet Gene, singing in the rain.

In fact the 2nd book of Samuel starts with David singing, or at least reciting, a lament over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan: How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath (or Geth).* Well, it's too late to tell it in Gath (or Geth) now, as the place has fallen into ruin.

It's not all bad news for David, as he is then anointed king. However, General Abner sets up Saul's remaining son Ish-bosheth as a rival king, although eventually they both get murdered.

* It's terrible how many clichés you find in the Bible. Shakespeare too, wrote little apart from clichés.

The comic strip Li'l Ish-bosheth never really took off.

At this stage, David is very much the good guy, and is really furious at the murders of Abner and Ish-whatsit. "David reigned over all Israel, doing what was just and right for all his people," as it says in Chapter 8, and God backs him. Indeed, God enters into an eternal covenant with him. I'm rather losing count of these Old Testament covenants, but each one was slightly more sophisticated that its predecessor. There'll be something much better on offer in the New Testament.

By the time we get to Chapter 9, David asks "Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?" There is, in fact; namely J's son Mephibosheth. But things are about to go horribly wrong, and it's all David's fault...

Bathsheba, she bare in a bath.

Yes, the lovely Bathsheba comes on the scene and David falls for her. Problem: she is married to Uriah the Hittite. David's conduct is rather poor here: he has an affair with her, and he arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle. From now on, David's life is going to consist of a succession of troubles, and it is hard to present it in a cheerful light.

Tamar, David's daughter, is raped by Amnon, his son. Then Absolom, another son, rebels against David. Although Absolom gets killed, he does at least try to die in a comic fashion: he's riding a mule under a tree, and is caught by the branches and left hanging in mid-air.

A brave attempt to inject some comedy into a depressing book.

It's no wonder that Samuel decided to stay dead during this book. Let's skip through to Chapter 22, without listing the wars and famine en route; here we have one of David's hit songs (he composed it earlier, it seems). This time he manages to be a bit more upbeat.

Are you all ready to join in the song, lads?

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
the God of my rock, in Him will I trust. 
He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, 
my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour...

This is good stuff, much better than "Follow me, follow me..." David later bundles a whole lot of these into a book of Psalms (this one turns up again as number 18).

Well, we're coming to the end of David's reign, although he hangs on a little longer in order to qualify for the book of 1 Kings. A deeply flawed character, but aren't we all, Richard? Yes, even you... look, admit that at least, and we may start getting somewhere...

New Hymns 2

Today we are truly honoured to welcome King David, warrior, sex symbol and - as author of the Book of Psalms - the Paul Inwood of the 10th Century BC. Now, your Majesty...

D: Hey, it's not "Your Majesty!" Call me Dave.

"Dave," working on a psalm.

E: Yes, OK, Dave. Now I know you've had some embarrassing moments in your time, especially when Signor Michelangelo of the Italian paparazzi published a nude sculpture of you, but let's put that to one side now, and talk about your psalms.

D: Well, one likes to think one has a role as a Defender of Faiths, you know, and my psalms do seem to have gone down well with many in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities.

E: Still, they obviously need a little "refreshing" for modern audiences, and so that's why you're here today, I understand.

D: Yes, I was wondering about my Psalm 23 (as translated by King James himself): The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Can you suggest something, Eccles?

A sheep, being sickeningly sweet.

E: Well, my general rule for modern hymns is, don't say too much about God, it's better to sing about yourself. And we could perhaps adapt the tune of "On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at," as Ilkley's a good place for sheep, I'm told.

The Lord's my shepherd, I'm a sheep:
I like to eat the grass and go "Baa Baa-aa."
The Lord's my shepherd, I'm a sheep,
The Lord's my shepherd, I'm a sheep.
Chorus: I like to go "Baa Baa!" 
I like to go "Baa Baa!" 
I like to go "Baa Baa!"

This sheep isn't as sweet, but he is on Ilkley Moor.

D: So how do you see the subsequent verses developing?

E: Well, as any modern hymn-writer will tell you, you only need to change one or two lines to get a completely new verse. So Verse 2 could be:

He makes me lie down in a field:
I like to eat the grass and go "Baa Baa-aa."
He makes me lie down in a field,
He makes me lie down in a field.
Chorus. I like to go "Baa Baa!" (x3)

D: My psalm is quite popular at funerals, you know, probably because of the lines: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Double-O-7, why have you brought me to the Valley of the Shadow of Death?

E: Well, Dave, have a go yourself.

D: O.K.

When in the Valley of Death's Shade,
I like to eat the grass and go "Baa Baa-aa."
When in the Valley of Death's Shade,
When in the Valley of Death's Shade,
Chorus. I like to go "Baa Baa!" (x3)

E: Magnificent, Dave! You've managed to drain out almost all the theology, and to leave just some comfortable stuff about sheep. Kevin Mayhew will be knocking at your door any time now, begging for the publishing rights.

You make a table for me, Lord...

Obama explains how the Bible supports him

President Barack Obama, well known to be a very devout Christian, has released an advert explaining how his policies are based on Biblical writings.

Cain and Abel - an economic lesson for us all.

"I base my economic policies on the much-loved story of Cain and Abel," explained the President. "Abel was a rich man, able to make the Lord a good offering, whereas Cain was poor, and came from a broken family, driven out of their home in Eden. What was he to do but kill Abel? Only the most die-hard Republicans would criticise him."

Hurricane Obama (formerly Sandy).

"Hurricane Obama (formerly known as Sandy) is another sign that the Lord is with me. Recall the verses of Jeremiah:

 This is what the Lord Almighty says:
'Look! Disaster is spreading
    from nation to nation;
a mighty storm is rising
    from the ends of the earth.'

The fact that New York has been badly devastated at this time is a sign that the Lord is telling the people of America 'Vote for that nice man Obama!'"

The Gadarene swine - doing Christ's bidding.

"I have always liked the story of the Gadarene swine - indeed, when people accuse me of leading America over a cliff, both morally, economically and socially, I say to them, 'But it is what Christ is telling us to do!'"

Kids! Horrid things! Let's kill them!

"Some of you may be wondering how the Bible justifies my policies on late-term abortion and even partial-birth abortion. I take my lead from King David, no less, who said, in one of his chart-topping psalms:

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones 
against the stones.

I hope we'll hear no more complaints about abortion, especially as my Vice-President, saintly Joe Biden, tells me that his sincerely-held Catholic faith leads directly to a pro-abortion standpoint. He's a great admirer of King Herod, and always has a good laugh on Holy Innocents' Day."

The Beast of the Apocalypse - have we misjudged him?

"The word 'apocalypse' is from the Greek word Ἀποκάλυψις, which means 'revelation' or 'unveiling.' I have always felt it my duty to bring an apocalypse to the United States. One character in the book of the Apocalypse - who, like me, has had a bad press in some right-wing circles - is known to his friends as 'Beast,' just as I am. A much misjudged character, who merely wanted to stick to his principles, as I do."

"I hope this puts an end to all talk questioning my religious faith."