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On marriage: thoughts from a marriage ‘postulant’

 This may not be the easiest post to read for some people I know and may seem infinitely naive for those few I know that are actually knowledgeable and much more practiced on the subject. Edith Stein once gave a talk titled in German Muttererziehungskunst- roughly translatable as motherhood kraft. At the start of it she humourously commented on the irony of a single female academic, who had spent the better part of a decade living in a Dominican convent and college, and a year or two later would become a Carmelite, being asked for talk about motherhood. She of course had ample knowledge about spiritual motherhood, something she also commented on in this talk. There is much that one can learn from observation and talking to others about a certain topic, it isn’t only experience, though obviously experience gives a knowledge about some things that renders a depth that is missing without that experience. In the case of marriage, it is a curious thing, but the church has a clear idea about
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Some updates on life in Pamplona and a beyond

Things have been quite busy and I have generally been avoiding the news, so my own world consists of pleasanter things than the trials of Trump, the crazy Tory policies, Ukraine, Israel, and the latest saga of corruption cases in Spanish politics, which reflect more personal vendettas than actual financial swindles. For not watching the news I seem to be quite up to date, I live with a family member that does stay up to date and she likes to comment. My information is partial. One of the most interesting moments in recent times was when a week ago I remembered a conversation I had with a Dominican friar from the Western Province of the United States based somewhere in California. It’s was way back in the final Autumn before the pandemic and some details are now hazy. He is attached or at least teaching at an institution, or maybe it was a parish as well, named St Catherine of Siena. He told me a story of  a lay Dominican he had once known that had moved cities every couple of years for
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Dumplings and Devotions.....Preface to the 3rd edition

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When a published book goes into several editions at some point the author thinks it is a good idea to update a bit the preface, which is something like “why do this in the first place?’ type of writing. When I began this blog some three years ago it was a bit of a pandemic project connected to an academic need. While the need still exists it seems slightly mind-boggling to think I was living at the time in a country that still required masks. Although, that being said, I am now currently living in a country that almost two months ago recommended making masks compulsory again during the combined flu/covid season we were experiencing. Now, some years on, it might be a good idea to rethink this whole thing again or not. Sometimes it’s simply fine to ‘spill my guts’ as it were on here expressing what needs to be ‘screamed’ to the world at any give time. Until the world becomes too much and hibernation is necessary. This happened between July and December of the past year. The news was so u
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Edith Stein and issues with translations

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Part of the reason linguistic matters have come to the forefront of my work is the particular way in which they related to my work on Edith Stein’s essay’s on Woman and the comments made by several friends on what they perceived to be her narrow view on women in today’s world. I couldn’t understand it at the time because Stein’s ideas are in line with their own way of thinking. My lack of understanding stemmed from not having read either the English or the Spanish versions of her essays.  This term I am tutoring a student who is analysing an evangelical influencer group that is anti-feminism but defend what can be understood as fractional complementarity. I felt she needed to read Stein to better understand the broader context of Christian Feminism and how the group she is analysing has failed to comprehend certain aspects of metaphysics, unsurprising given their evangelical background and how since Luther this has been a weak point in Protestant theology. My student does not read or s
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To communicate, to take communion, to be in communion

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 I am not a linguist. Fairly clear statement, but not quite. While I cannot explain the intricacies of language nuances or historical development of how we got Santiago from James or the other way around for a decade I have lived in three languages on a regular basis. Since I grew up bilingual this isn’t such a radical change in theory but the third language is German and German has the curiosity of being both very concrete and very diverse in each words meanings. Work, especially in relation to Edith Stein, has underscored the issues that can come up when a translation becomes to interpretive. The words that I have been thinking of this weekend is the German word for communicating and taking communion. In what may seem like a contradiction to the assumed exactitude of the German language the word for communicating and taking communion is the same: “communizieren” but seen from a different perspective, whether the use of the word in this was intentional or not, it allows us to meditate
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A brief note on going too far

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 These past weeks have involved intense discussions, prayer, and thinking on a topic close to the hearts of all of my fellow discussants. Our concern, pain, and confusion is clear. St Catherine of Siena comes up regularly. Watch this space if you are interested in some weeks or a few months you might want to find out more. Independent of them and only briefly publicly saying what I think on one topic specifically, I write this very brief note. The role of women is one of those topics that has become a ‘hot’ topic for Catholics and one can be easily misunderstood if one is too diplomatic. It has happened to me as a theology student in Cambridge and being amongst anglican ordinands I was diplomatic and wholly misunderstood. The way I, a Catholic, think about this topic is radically different from theirs and I wanted to spare their already confused and frayed spirits. BUT being misunderstood on this important topic did no one any favours. As a Church we have some wonderful sources for thi
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“ all sought Jesus out”-some thoughts from this week’s Lectio

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 Those who know me personally know that the practice of Lectio Divina has shaped my practice of the faith for some time now. Since my student days at the Oxford Catholic Chaplaincy. Far from a pious claim this is has been and continues to be  a confirmation of how much I don’t know about scripture. It is an honest recognition that I, and most likely many other Catholics, don’t spend enough time before our Lord in the written words of Scripture.  Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Mark, like the past few weeks, we continue in Chapter I. Today Jesus cures a leper. Fr Nicholas Crowe at Blackfriars Oxford goes far deeper into the minute symbolic meaning of the actions taken by the Leper in today’s Gospel during the  homily  he gave at Mass, than I will do. What stayed with me from this week’s Lectio with the local Dominican fraternity was the phrase that comes at the end of the Gospel. The leper understandably joyful about his being cured tells all and Jesus can no longer enter a city o
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