Friday, February 13, 2004

Ready for a trip...

Next week, I am embarking on yet another business trip, as I mentioned a couple of months ago. I am flying to Houston, TX to speak at the Texas Instruments Developer's Conference.

I'm really looking forward to the conference; A lot of cutting-edge tech. I'm also looking forward to speaking and meeting the various TI internal and third-party developers. Plus, while I am in Houston, I'm going to stick around a few days and check the place out. Among the things I'd like to see are:

- Visit my buddy, Bill
- Johnson Space Center
- Mardi Gras in Galveston
- High Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church
- Anglican Use liturgy at Our Lady of Walsingham Catholic Church
- Our Lady of Cedars Maronite Catholic Church

I'm a nut for liturgical history and a lover of ecclesiastical latin, but I have never been to a (Tridentine) high mass, only the low mass down in Ventura. And as it pertains to modern liturgical history, I have also been eagerly anticipating attending the approved Anglican Use liturgy for a couple years now. I have also never been to the Johnson Space Center (I wanted to be an astronaut in my former life), nor have I ever been to any Mardi Gras festivities. Bill informs me that the Galveston celebration is much more tame than New Orleans, which is another place that I'd love to visit someday.

Please pray that my trip goes well. I'll be back with plenty of pictures!

Monday, February 09, 2004

The Blessed Virgin and the Order of Preachers



The Vision of the Dominican Habit, Fra. Angelico

Article: Devotion to Mary Among the Dominicans in the Thirteenth Century, by Denis Wiseman, O.P.

I really enjoyed this article by Denis Wiseman, professor at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., about early devotion to the Blessed Virgin among the friars of the Order of Preachers, including the pious traditions and beliefs about Mary's gracious protection of the Order as well as the early development of the Order's distinctive Marian character. Also, a discussion on the legends about the origin of the Dominican Habit and its connection to the Blessed Virgin:
Jordan's "Libellus" recounts Mary's role in bringing Reginald, a master of theology and dean of the cathedral chapter at Orleans, to the Order. During a serious illness in 1218, Our Lady healed him and, then, according to Jordan's account: "showed him the whole habit of the Order." The "Legenda Petri Ferrandi," composed by the Spanish Dominican, Peter Ferrandus, between 1235 and 1239, records the event, with the words of Mary: "Then she showed him the habit of the Order of Preachers. 'Behold,' she said, 'this is the habit of your Order.'"

...Taken literally, Jordan [of Saxony] and [Peter] Ferrandus may mean only that Mary indicated the order which Reginald should enter by showing its habit. However, these texts have come to be understood as meaning that Mary gave Reginald a new habit or an additional element to the habit. ...The tradition that Mary either gave the entire habit or the scapular has been persistent in the Order. Stephen Salanhac, who died in 1291, describes Mary as the felix huius ordinis vestiaria, "the happy clothier of our Order."
And, of course, the connection between Mary and preaching:
... perhaps the most powerful image for Dominicans is the association of Mary with the preaching mission. In the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., the Priory of the Immaculate Conception, a figure of the pregnant Virgin stands above the lectern illustrating that she is the model for those who bring forth the Word.

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