An Aid To Memory

Speaking privately, Pope Benedict opposes Harry Potter. There is a good discussion about it over at Pontifications. Personally, I think Harry Potter books can be a gateway into neo-paganism for those ungrounded in their faith, but no more a gateway than hundreds of other common influences that can lead people so-inclined that direction. Heck, even well-meaning, but over-burdening and exasperating Christian parents can lead children in a direction opposite of their own faith, perhaps in the direction of paganism.   

I have decided to remove the original post I composed here for an important reason: I have never read the HP books or seen the movies. Also, my post was almost entirely about the rise and influence of neo-paganism among youth, and the Harry Potter books were only peripherally related. I will be taking some things from this removed post and molding it into a new post about neo-paganism, which I want to address soon. This is a project I have been developing for awhile. So please come back and check that out, saving all of your comments.

Well my new Latin-English Benedictine Monastic Diurnal published by the Benedictines at St. Michael’s Abbey, Farnborough finally arrived in the mail this week (after waiting about 2 months). It has all of the daytime Monastic hours, various hymns, and has everything in Latin and English, accent marks and all! I haven’t had a whole lot of time to use it this week, since my dad was in the hospital with a heart scare (thank God it was only a stomach issue). However I am excited to start using the book. To order it for yourself, click here. The price is reasonable if you are paying in British pounds. If you are paying in US dollars the price is a bit high because the US dollar is so weak.

In other random news, I am finishing up all of my grad school applications, and have lost the 4-5 pounds I gained over the holiday season!

The image on the left is a photo from the diurnal, borrowed from the Abbey’s site.