What's happening on the blog?

 

It has struck me that, unless I update the blog now, anyone coming to it out of the ether will encounter a post some two years old and think that I have passed beyond the veil... 

And so, a brief post to let you know I am still alive and the blog is still active. Over the past few years, I have been regularly posting on Twitter and also gradually updating the long term project of compiling a lectionary with readings in Scots. (There has of course also been life.) I haven't really been engaging in any controversies online, in part because I personally have lost the taste for them, and in part because, at this time anyway, I think we have reached an odd moment in our culture where, both in our country and in the Church, we seem to have lost the ability to rub along with people. I could controversially insist on this view and shout at people online until they became as boringly centrist as I am, but I suspect that would rather defeat the point: we need to cultivate the arts of peaceful coexistence while in disagreement, and keeping quiet in the face of provocation is a key element of that. 

Anyway, for the moment, I am intent rather on cultivating my cultural garden peacefully, fortified by the undoubtedly realistic hope that, by dint of having online pages full of Sunday Mass readings in Scots, everything will be all right. I will doubtless arise from my quiet labours at some stage, but, in the meantime, Scots readings will be updated, Tweets will be sent, and many hard words on the tip of my tongue will be swallowed. Unfashionable though it is, I suspect the Church in Scotland anyway will thrive or at least survive only if we can recover the determinedly bitter practices of 'Pray, Pay and Obey' rather than anything more immediately enjoyable. We should arrange to meet in a couple of centuries and see how things have gone before devising any new stratagems.

I jest (I think). But in any case, I remain here, am not going away, and continue to be as faithful a Catholic as my rather unsuitable personality allows. The Church, despite all its difficulties, has all we need for salvation and I certainly will be grimly hanging on to it. My advice is to do likewise.

Merry Christmas

 

Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to
take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a
pure virgin: grant that we, being regenerate and made thy
children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy
Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ thy son our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one
God, world without end. Amen.

(From the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham.)


Complete Mass readings in Scots: here

Mass readings in Scots: Feast of the Assumption

 

First reading
Apocalypse 11: 19; 12: 1-6, 10

Ande the tempile of God in heuen was opnit, and the ark of his testament was sene in his tempile. And a gret signe apperit in heuen; a woman clethit with the sonn, and the mone vndir hir feet, and in the hede of hir a croun of xij sternis. And scho had in wambe, and scho crijs, traualing of child, and is turmentit, that scho bere child. And ane vthir signe was sene in heuen; and lo! a gret rede dragoun, that had vij hedis, and ten hornis, and in the hedis of him vij diademis. And the taile of him drew the thridpart of the sternis of heuen, and send thame into the erd. And the dragoun stude befoir the woman, that was to bere child, that quhen scho had bom child, he suld deuour hir sonn. And scho baire a male childe, that was to reule al folkis in ane irn wand; and hir sonn was rauisit to God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into wildirnes, quhare scho has a place made reddi of God [...] And I herd a gret voce in heuen, sayand, Now is made hele, and virtue, and kingdome of our God, and the power of his Crist [...]

[From The New Testament in Scots Murdoch Nisbet [c.1520] (1905) vol 3 here] 

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 44: 10-12, 16 (resp. v.10)

The queen at thy right han' i' the gowd o' Ophir stude.

Kings' dochtirs, i' yer brawest gear, war snod: 

the queen at thy right han', i' the gowd o' Ophir stude.
Dochtir, hearken ye an' leuk, an' lout yer lug; 

an' forget ye yer ain folk, an' eke yer faither's blude: 

The queen at thy right han', i' the gowd o' Ophir stude.

Syne yer leuks sal like the king;
an' for he is your Lord, ye maun lout fu' laigh till him. 
Wi' blytheheid an' wi' glee, sal they be fushen in; 

an' they sal a' gang hame, till the pailis o' the king. 

The queen at thy right han', i' the gowd o' Ophir stude.

[From Psalm 45 in The Psalms: frae Hebrew intil Scottis P. Hately Waddell (1891) here]

Second reading
1 Corinthians 15: 20-26

Bot now Crist raase agane fra deid, the first fruit of deidmen: for deid was be a man, and be a man is agane rising fra deid. And as in Adam almen deis, sa in Crist almen salbe quiknyt. Bot ilkman in his ordour; the first fruit, Crist, eftirwart thai that ar of Crist, that beleuet in the cumming of Crist; Eftirwart ane end, quhen he sal betak the kingdome to Gode and to the fader, quhen he sail avoid al princehede, and powere, and virtue. Bot jt behuvis him to regne till he put al his ennimyis vndir his feet And at the last, deid the ennimye salbe destroyit; for he has made al thingis subiect vndir his feet.

[From The New Testament in Scots Murdoch Nisbet [c.1520] (1903) vol 2 here]

Gospel reading

Luke 1: 39-56

And Marie raase vp in tha dais, and went with haast into the montanis, into a citee of Judee: And scho entrit into the hous of Zacharie, and salusit Elizabeth. And it was done, as Elizabeth herd the salutatioun of Marie, the yonng child in hir wambe glaidit; and Elizabeth was fulfillit with the Haligaast: And criet with a gret voce, and said, "Blessit be thou amang women, and blessit be the fruit of thi wambe. Quharof is this thing to me, that the moder of my Lord cum to me? For, lo, as the voce of thi salutatioun was made in myn eiris, the infant [...] glaidit in ioy in my wambe. And blessit be thou that has beleuet; for tha thingis that ar said of the Lord to thee salbe perfytlie done."

And Marie said, 

"My saule magnifies the Lord, 

And my spirit has glaidit in God my heil.
For he beheld the meeknes of his handmaidin; 

for, lo, of this al generatiouns sal say that I am blessit.
For he that is mychti has done to me grete thingis ;
and his name is haly.

And his mercy is fra kinred into kinreddis to men that dredis him. 

He made mycht in his arme; 

he scatterit proudmen with the thoucht of his hart. 

He put doun mychti men fra the seet, and vpheet mekemen. 

He has fulfillit hungrie men with gudes; and he has left richemen void. 

He, having mynd of his mercy, tuke Israel, his childe; 

As he has spokin to oure fadris, 

to Abraham, and to his seed in to warldis."

And Marie duelt with hir as it war iij monethis, and turnit agan into hir hous.

[From The New Testament in Scots Murdoch Nisbet [c.1520] (1901) vol 1 here]