I married a rocket scientist, but even before we met I had been a fan of certain science fiction shows.  Somehow I had never seen Babylon 5 though, until my dh used his Christmas gift cards to purchase the DVD set of all 5 seasons of Babylon 5.  At first I resisted... I admit, I was sucked into the Star Trek universe, and it was hard to make the shift over to another creator's perspective of the future.  But I was glad I did.  Where Star Trek avoided religion and took idealistic yet relativistic perspectives on important issues, Babylon 5 dives right into these, exploring the conflict of the human heart with itself (as the creator J. Michael Straczynski mentioned, following the advice of Nobel Prize winning author William Faulkner.  Apparently Straczynski grew up Catholic, though is now an atheist.  You would never guess that from his respectful treatment of faith on the show, including the presence of Catholic clergy. 

There was "one moment of beauty" in one episode that really struck me as I watched.  The captain of the Babylon 5 space station was somewhat reluctantly being mentored by an angelic alien of few words called a Vorlon, and during one of their mentoring sessions, the Vorlon takes the captain to a hidden area behind a panel in some hallway and sends him inside, closing the panel behind him.  He has to crouch and crawl his way in past shadowy piles of stuff until he finally finds a robed and hooded man sitting on the far side.  He silently pushes a dish toward the captain, apparently begging for money.  This however is the 2100s, it's not like people carry pocket change anymore.  All he has to give is a command bar off his uniform.  He places it in the dish, and all at once the shadowy piles of stuff around the area sit up and reveal they are actually robed and hooded figures.  Then they begin to sing. 

And what are they singing?  The introit for Christmas Day, Puer natus est nobis. 

Talk about finding Gregorian Chant in an unexpected place... an epsiode of 1990s sci-fi series.  Cool.

Posted by Darcy at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week something that I've never witnessed before happened: the Holy Father changed the Extraordinary Form of the Roman liturgy.  He changed one of the intercessory prayers for Good Friday, the one which prays for the conversion of the Jews.  I am not going to get into all the semantics (no pun intended) or issues that could be raised having to do with this decision - I think that has been well discussed on the NLM blog. 

What I do want to make a comment on is how remarkable it is that this was announced by the Pope on February 5th and is to be implemented this Good Friday, March 21st.  That is only about a month and a half between pronouncement and reality. 

This change applies only to the extraordinary form.  What if a similar change were to implemented in the ordinary form (the "novus ordo")? 

I suspect it would be tied up in red tape for a while, maybe years.  It certainly would take longer than a month and a half from decree to reality.  The reason is that the new prayer would have to be officially translated into every vernacular language -- and carefully, considering the touchy text involved.  

It makes an interesting, practical argument for the restoration of Latin to its rightful place in the ordinary form of the Roman rite.  A common language would mean changes could more easily be implemented.  And with Pope Benedict XVI at the helm of the bark that is the Church, this could be a very good thing.

Posted by Darcy at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)