Year of St Paul

[docmattc]

The year of St Paul is about to kick off, is anything happening for it?

I'm going to ask our parish council- a fiver says their answer is "year of what?"

[Angela Barber]

We're not doing too bad for St. Paul in our deanery. There's a pilgrimage to Rome and Assisi taking place early in 2009 (already oversubscribed) and we have a lecture about St. Paul next month organised by the Diocesan Education Office. Wonder if someone will produce any Pauline music or if there's any already in existence?
Angela

[docmattc]

That's great news Angela.

I was met tonight on arriving for choir practice by the PP with the words "What do you know about the year of St Paul?" So I guess that's a fiver in the McGelligot fund at summer school

[Reginald]

I read recently that there is, exceptionally, permission to celebrate the Mass of the Conversion of St Paul on the day (Sunday) itself - but only one such mass. Other masses in the parish would be the ordinary Sunday Mass. Don't remember where I read it though.

As I read it this is an option only, I wonder how many parishes will avail themselves of it?

[Southern Comfort]

It is a decree posted on the Vatican website - has also been repeated by our Liturgy Office and on Zenit. One Mass for St Paul may be celebrated in every church on Sunday 25 Jan as part of the Year of St Paul, using the readings for the feast. Since it's a Sunday, a 2nd reading will be needed, which is taken from the 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (and of course it's from St Paul - phew!). And the Profession of Faith is said as usual.

[organist]

Mass to launch the Year at Westminster Cathedral yesterday celebrated by our Cardinal. Westminster diocesan small groups will study a course on Paul in the autumn (the weeks prior to Christ the King). See the diocesan website for details of lectures, etc.
Certainly going on the Society's pilgrimage in the footsteps of Paul to Greece with Fr Allen Morris opened our eyes to the wonderful character of St Paul. Martin Foster produced a marvellous selection of music based on Pauline texts for that journey.

[JW]

I wasn't aware that we're starting the Year of St Paul. I can't see anything in the Southwark Directory and haven't heard anything about it at Mass (though I've been on holiday - but nothing was mentioned in the church I attended in Cornwall last week). How was this promulgated? What are the objectives? How are we expected to celebrate it?

[quaeritor]

As I recently inherited the chore/right/privilege (delete to taste) of picking the hymns for Sunday Mass I actually get to read and give a little thought to the readings (instead of just spending that part of the Mass in a panic about the impending Psalm or Gospel Acclamation) so I thought I might mark the Year of St Paul by actually reading the whole of the relevant epistle instead of trying to figure out in a vacuum where the sometimes random-seeming snippets that we get are coming from, and what he was actually on about.

Can anyone recommend a "Companion to the Epistles" or some such similar work to give some background and help to see the things in context (but, please, something factually based - not the visions of some mystic who thought he knew exactly what St Paul ought to have been trying to say).

Always seeking . . .

[organist]

William Barclay's commentaries are still useful. I saw some small booklets in St Paul's bookshop next to Westminster Cathedral on specific epistles and I imagine that shop would be a good place to start as they had a large display of books on Paul. The one I bought was about going in his footsteps just as we did in Greece with SSG group and Fr Allen Morris.

[docmattc]

Martin Foster has produced a collection of short leaflets putting the epistles we hear over the year into some context. They're on the liturgy office website.

http://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Scripture/Paul.html