How, Pray Tell, Did We Name Our Blog?

Lex orandi lex credendi, the slogan goes. The law of prayer is the law of faith. The way we pray determines what we believe. Liturgy comes before doctrine.

Here in Collegeville we’ve long supported the vernacular. Already in 1951 we renamed Orate Fratres, our liturgical journal, Worship. And now we’d like to think that we’ve provided a translation of Lex orandi lex credendi for our times: yup, “Pray Tell.” Now that’s dynamic equivalence at work for you.

OK, I made all that up. But I do rather like putting “pray” before “tell.” It reminds me of Prologue of the Rule of Benedict, “Every time you begin a good work, you must pray to Christ the Lord most earnestly to bring it to perfection.” I try to follow that advice before I post, as I pray for wisdom and a loving heart in putting down my thoughts.

I rather like running a blog, by the way. It’s the perfect medium for an introvert with lots of opinions like me.

And I really like the name of our blog. I wish I could claim credit for thinking of it, but I can’t. Kudos to Peter Dwyer, director of Liturgical Press.

awr

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, is a monk of St. John's Abbey. He teaches liturgy, liturgical music, and Gregorian chant at St. John's University School of Theology-Seminary. He is widely published and frequently presents across the country on liturgy and music. He is the author of Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Treasures and Transformations, and of Responsorial Psalms for Weekday Mass: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. He does priestly ministry at the neighboring community of Benedictine sisters in St. Joseph.

Please leave a reply.

Comments

7 responses to “How, Pray Tell, Did We Name Our Blog?”

  1. Karl Liam Saur

    A couple of comments on blog formatting:

    1. It would be good if you were to visually segregate “sticky” threads that are being kept alive from those being added newly to the unsticky threads.

    2. It would also be good to switch the placement of the Categories and Recent Comments sidebars.

    Reply
  2. Fr. Allan McDonald

    And pray tell, it’s a darn good name and blog at that, almost as good as “southern orders” and yes I did come up with that, but mine is very populist and edgy.

    Reply
  3. Ceile De

    I agree with Karl – the order of postings gets thrown out of whack. If “featured posts” could all be clearly delineated from the latest ones, the site would be easier to navigate.

    Reply
  4. Jeffrey Herbert

    The impression when you first log on is that there are no new articles….you have to scroll down a ways to get to new threads. The “Featured Article” block should be sidebarred maybe? Newer stuff always at the top….

    Reply
  5. Kathy Pluth

    “It’s the perfect medium for an introvert with lots of opinions like me.” –I’m pretty sure this is the feeling that has brought about the blogging revolution. Like art, the medium enables one to speak and hide at the same time.

    I agree with the comments above regarding stickies.

    I probably disagree, though, with some of the implications of positioning liturgy before doctrine. I’m reminded of the use of hymns in the New Testament, in which the liturgical expressions are used as convincing expressions of doctrine. The two are not in opposition. Liturgy and doctrine are integral.

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      Kathy – good point and I agree with you. I didn’t want to go into the niceties of the lexorandi/lex credendi debate here because it wasn’t crucial to my main point. But in fact I think the the two are integral and recicprocal. I still recall Geoffrey Wainright saying to me that he had disagreed with Aidan Kavanagh on this point, and he rather thought the consensus was going his way. I think he was (is) right.
      Pax,
      awr

      Reply
  6. Kathy Pluth

    Thank you, Fr. Ruff. I kinda thought we agreed on this.

    Reply

Posted

in

, ,

by

Anthony Ruff, OSB

Tags:

,

Discover more from Home

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading