The extraordinary presentation of the Old Testament in the liturgy: as a whole library of ancient texts that are all about Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Re-new<\/em>-al, re-nova<\/em>-tion, restoration: even the bright lights of the \u201cRenaissance\u201d (a term desperately in need of qualification) knew that making new means going backwards. Backwards towards the new. Newman: \u201cWalking to heaven backwards.\u201d Jesus: \u201cI come not to abolish but fulfil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the vantage of the new we (Christians) can better see the newness in the old; how Virgil Aristotle Plato Homer rise above the oldness. Why sagely Chinamen and Brahmins are redemptive in some partial way; they, too, grasping fragments of the future (and timeless) Christian vision. But it took Christ to show it whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dante is so wonderfully severe; so new<\/em>. Reading (instead) Piers Plowman<\/em> in bed last night I thought, Can any poet match Dante in moral severity? Langland is so tolerant, so understanding, so utterly charming, so later<\/em>. What an enchanting evocation of life in the fourteenth century! But there is a man getting old again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a world that rots, we need new. We need to keep it new. That is why mere conservatism can never cut it. We need the full-bodied reactionary attitude; the take-no-prisoners approach of Dante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just thinking aloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By David Warren, lecturer in religion and literature, St Philip\u2019s Seminary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The extraordinary presentation of the Old Testament in the liturgy: as a whole library of ancient texts that are all about Christ. Re-new-al, re-nova-tion, restoration: even the bright lights of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/MakeitNew.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8brX6-4yN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17535,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions\/17535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oratory-toronto.org\/map-year\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}