by David Clayton on April 2, 2013
Educators take note! Here is the greatest source of wisdom. When writing about Jean Leclercq’s Love of Learning and the Desire for God, I referred to his description of the tension that exists between the different educational approaches of the scholastic and the monastics schools . The former characterised (in part) by relying of very dry, [...]
by David Clayton on January 25, 2013
An education in truths that cannot be expressed in words In his book, the Love of Learning and the Desire for God, Jean Leclerq describes various tensions playing out in education in the medieval period. One arises from the love of beautiful literature, poetic or prosaic, that is not explicitly sacred. The danger is that [...]
by David Clayton on January 15, 2013
The cursing psalms are not in the modern divine office - how does this omission affect the psychology of those in the Church? I was recently given a copy of the St Dunstan’s Psalter. It contains a 16th century arrangement of the psalms set to modal tones set to an English text. The tones are taken [...]
by David Clayton on December 11, 2012
Anyone can learn to sing the psalms Following a recent article about us singing Vespers at a local hospital, a number of people have been asking me about the music for the psalm tones that we use when we sing Vespers and Compline for the US Veterans at the VA hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire. [...]
by David Clayton on December 4, 2012
Recently when I went home to England we had a reunion of old college friends of mine. Most were not believers of any sort – I had known them since I was eighteen and so the friendships pre-date, by a long way, my conversion (I was 31 when was received into the Church and have [...]
by David Clayton on June 16, 2012
How do you pray the Liturgy of the Hours when the books are too heavy to put into your suitcase and your normal routine is disrupted? I have just returned from a visit to England and Spain to see my family. For various reasons I haven’t been able to leave the US for a couple [...]
by David Clayton on May 18, 2012
I am regularly asked by parents how they can teach an appreciation of good traditional art to their children. One father recently went further than that and asked me if there was anything I could do to unculturate them in such a way that their sensibilities are in tune with a catholic culture in its [...]
by David Clayton on March 13, 2012
Liturgical prayer is a means for discerning our personal vocation and God’s will for us…and so much more In the Lenten readings from the Liturgy of the Hours we have an example how through the Liturgy the Church instructs us about the value of praying the Liturgy with the Church. The reading from Vespers on [...]