Operi Dei Nihil Praeponatur

"In the period following the [Second Vatican] Council, of course, the Constitution on the liturgy was understood, no longer on the basis of this fundamental primacy of adoration, but quite simply as a recipe book concerned with what we can do with the liturgy. In the meantime many liturgical experts, rushing into considerations about how we can shape the liturgy in a more attractive way, to communicate better, so as to get more and more people involved have apparently quite lost sight of the fact that the liturgy is actually 'done' for God and not for ourselves. The more we do it for ourselves, however, the less it attracts people, because everyone can clearly sense that what is essential is increasingly eluding us." -JCR (Benedisct XVI) Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, p 126.

Hand Written Romanian Icons

ICONS

Hand written icons can be quite expensive. Over the course of the last six months I have purchased four hand written icons from this individual. I was asked to share the information. The link is for her ebay profile, and the link below is a page she has set up.

"All of my works are hand-made, using the traditional art of egg-tempera on old lime wood and golden leaf. I also do commisioned work. I have graduated from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology from Iasi in 2003. My field of work is icon and manuscript painting."

Another link to her work (click here)

Ebay profile (click here)

English Standard Version w/ Apocrypha

From the publisher:

[The English Standard Version] has been growing in popularity among students in biblical studies, mainline Christian scholars and clergy, and Evangelical Christians of all denominations.

Along with that growth comes the need for the books of the Apocrypha to be included in ESV Bibles, both for denominations that use those books in liturgical readings and for students who need them for historical purposes. More Evangelicals are also beginning to be interested in the Apocrypha, even though they don't consider it God's Word. The English Standard Version Bible with the Apocrypha , for which the Apocrypha has been commissioned by Oxford University Press, employs the same methods and guidelines used by the original translators of the ESV, to produce for the first time an ESV Apocrypha. This will be the only ESV with Apocrypha available anywhere, and it includes all of the books and parts of books in the Protestant Apocrypha, the Catholic Old Testament, and the Old Testament as used in Orthodox Christian churches

The English Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha is certain to become the preferred Bible in more conservative divinity schools and seminaries, where the Apocrypha is studied from an academic perspective. And it answers the need of conservative Christians in general for a more literal version of these books.

Consider also:

The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod has adopted the ESV as the official text used in its official hymnal "Lutheran Service Book", released in August 2006. It is in use in the church's three and one year lectionaries released with "Lutheran Service Book." The official publishing arm of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Concordia Publishing House, is using the English Standard Version as its translation of choice in all its published materials. Concordia Publishing House is releasing The Lutheran Study Bible in October 2009, which will use the ESV translation.

1/31/2010 After a visit to their Winter Conference and looking at their modern language Prayer Book it is apparent to me that the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) has either officially or unofficially adopted the ESV as its translation of choice.

Evolutionary Psychology

Excerpt from Newsweek|On Science

On Second Thought
by Sharon Begley

"it's fascinating how scientists with an intellectual stake in a particular side of a debate tend to see flaws in studies that undercut their dearly held views, and to interpret and even ignore "facts" to fit their views. No wonder the historian Thomas Kuhn concluded almost 50 years ago that a scientific paradigm topples only when the last of its powerful adherents dies. The few essays in which scientists do admit they were wrong— and about something central to their reputation—therefore stand out.

The most fascinating backpedaling is by scientists who have long pushed evolutionary psychology. This field holds that we all carry genes that led to reproductive success in the Stone Age, and that as a result men are genetically driven to be promiscuous and women to be coy, that men have a biological disposition to rape and to kill mates who cheat on them, and that every human behavior is "adaptive"—that is, helpful to reproduction. But as Harvard biologist Marc Hauser now concedes, evidence is "sorely missing" that language, morals and many other human behaviors exist because they help us mate and reproduce."

"You (Anglicans) are the tree from which we (Baptists) have grown." -Dr. Albert Mohler, the 9th president of the Southern Baptist Convention and a leading conservative voice in American Culture, Mere Anglican conference 1/09.